Meanwhile the partidas in the north, being aided by Popham’s expedition, obliged Reille to remove to Navarre, that Caffarelli might turn his whole attention to the side of Biscay, and the Montaña. Decaen then received charge of the Lower as well as of the Upper Catalonia, which weakened his position; and at the same time some confusion was produced, by the arrival of French prefects and councillors of state, to organize a civil administration. This measure, ostensibly to restrain military licentiousness, had probably the ultimate object of preparing Catalonia for an union with France, because the Catalans who have peculiar customs and a dialect of their own, scarcely call themselves Spaniards. Although these events embarrassed the French army, the progress of the invasion was visible in the altered feelings, of the people whose enthusiasm was stifled by the folly and corruption, with which their leaders aided the active hostility of the French. [Sidenote: Codrington’s papers, MSS.] The troops were reduced in number, distressed for provisions, and the soldiers deserted to the enemy, a thing till then unheard of in Catalonia, nay, the junta having come down to the coast were like to have been delivered up to the French, as a peace offering. The latter passed, even singly, from one part to the other, and the people of the sea-coast towns readily trafficked with the garrison of Barcelona, when neither money nor threats could prevail on them to supply the British squadron. Claros and Milans were charged with conniving at this traffic, and of exacting money for the landing of corn, when their own people and soldiers were starving. But to such a degree was patriotism overlaid by the love of gain, that the colonial produce, seized in Barcelona, and other parts, was sold, by the enemy, to French merchants, and the latter undertook both to carry it off, and pay with provisions on the spot, which they successfully executed by means of Spanish vessels, corruptly licensed for the occasion by Catalan authorities. Meanwhile the people generally accused the junta of extreme indolence, and Lacy, of treachery; and tyranny because of his arbitrary conduct in all things, but especially that after proclaiming a general rising, he had disarmed the Somatenes, and suppressed the independent bands. He had quarreled with the British naval officers, was the avowed enemy of Erolles, the secret calumniator of Sarzfield, and withal a man of no courage or enterprize in the field. Nor was the story of his previous life, calculated to check the bad opinion generally entertained of him. It was said that, being originally a Spanish officer, he was banished, for an intrigue, to the Canaries, from whence he deserted to the French, and again deserted to his own countrymen, when the war of independence broke out.