The Catalans, after Lacy’s departure, had, with the aid of captain Adam’s ship, destroyed two small forts at Perillo and Ampolla, and Eroles had blockaded San Felippe de Balaguer for thirty-six days, but it was then succoured by Maurice Mathieu; and the success at Perillo was more than balanced by a check which Sarzfield received on the 3d of April from some of Pannetier’s troops. The partida warfare had, however, been more active in Upper Catalonia, and Copons claimed two considerable victories, one gained by himself on the 17th of May, at La Bispal near the Col de Cristina, where he boasted to have beaten six thousand French with half their numbers, destroying six hundred, as they returned from succouring San Felippe de Balaguer. In the other, won by colonel Lander near Olot on the 7th of May, it was said twelve hundred of Lamarque’s men fell. These exploits are by French writers called skirmishes, and the following description of the Catalan army, given to sir John Murray by Cabanes, the chief of Copons’ staff, renders the French version the most credible. “_We do not_,” said that officer, “_exceed nine or ten thousand men, extended on different points of a line running from the neighbourhood of Reus along the high mountains to the vicinity of Olot. The soldiers are brave, but without discipline, without subordination, without clothing, without artillery, without ammunition, without magazines, without money, and without means of transport!_” Copons himself, when he came down to the Campo, very frankly told Murray, that as his troops could only fight in position, he would not join in any operation which endangered his retreat into the high mountains. However, with the exception of twelve hundred men left at Vich under Eroles, all his forces, the best perhaps in Spain, were now at Reus and the Col de Balaguer, ready to intercept the communications of the different French corps, and to harass their marches if they should descend into the Campo. Murray could also calculate upon seven or eight hundred seamen and marines to aid him in pushing on the works of the siege, or in a battle near the shore; and he expected three thousand additional troops from Sicily. Sir Edward Pellew, commanding the great Mediterranean fleet, had promised to divert the attention of the French troops by a descent eastward of Barcelona, and the armies of Del Parque and Elio were to make a like diversion westward of Tortoza. Finally, a general rising of the Somatenes might have been effected, and those mountaineers were all at Murray’s disposal, to procure intelligence, to give timely notice of the enemy’s approach, or to impede his march by breaking up the roads.