This advantage was not reciprocal. The secondary warfare which the French sustained, and which it is now time again to notice, would have been sufficient to establish the military reputation of any nation before Napoleon’s exploits had raised the standard of military glory. For when disembarrassed of their most formidable enemy, they were still obliged to chase the Partidas, to form sieges, to recover and restore the posts they had lost by concentrating their armies, to send moveable columns by long winter marches over a vast extent of country for food, fighting for what they got, and living hard because the magazines filled from the fertile districts were of necessity reserved for the field operations against Wellington. Certainly it was a great and terrible war they had in hand, and good and formidable soldiers they were to sustain it so long and so manfully amidst the many errors of their generals. CHAPTER VI. CONTINUATION OF THE PARTIZAN WARFARE. [Sidenote: 1812.] In the north, while Souham was gathering in front of Wellington, some of Mendizabel’s bands blockaded Santona by land, and Popham, after his failure at Gueteria blockaded it by sea. It was not very well provisioned, but Napoleon, always watchful, had sent an especial governor, general Lameth, and a chosen engineer, general D’Abadie, from Paris to complete the works. By their activity a hundred and twenty pieces of cannon were soon mounted, and they had including the crew of a corvette a garrison of eighteen hundred men. Lameth who was obliged to fight his way into the place in September, also formed an armed flotilla, with which, when the English squadron was driven off the port by gales of wind, he made frequent captures. Meanwhile Mendizabel surprised the garrison of Briviesca, Longa captured a large convoy with its escort, near Burgos, and all the bands had visibly increased in numbers and boldness.