Nor were the Spaniards quite inactive in Catalonia, although the departure of general Maitland had so dispirited them that the regular warfare was upon the point of ceasing altogether. The active army was indeed stated to be twenty thousand strong, and the tercios of reserve forty-five thousand; yet a column of nine hundred French controuled the sea-line and cut off all supplies landed for the interior. Lacy who remained about Vich with seven thousand men affirmed that he could not feed his army on the coast, but captain Codrington says that nineteen feluccas laden with flour had in two nights only, landed their cargoes between Mattaro and Barcelona for the supply of the latter city, and that these and many other ventures of the same kind might have been captured without difficulty; that Claros and Milans continued corruptly to connive at the passage of French convoys; that the rich merchants of Mattaro and Arens invited the enemy to protect their contraband convoys going to France, and yet accused him publicly of interrupting their lawful trade when in fact he was only disturbing a treasonable commerce, carried on so openly that he was forced to declare a blockade of the whole coast. A plot to deliver up the Medas islands was also discovered, and when Lacy was pressed to call out the Somatenes, a favorite project with the English naval officers, he objected that he could scarcely feed and provide ammunition for the regular troops. He also observed that the general efforts of that nature hitherto made, and under more favourable circumstances, had produced only a waste of life, of treasure, of provisions, of ammunition and of arms, and now the French possessed all the strong places.