This letter was written on the 23d of August, when lord William Bentinck had just retreated from the Gaya into the mountains above Hospitalet. The imperial muster-rolls prove that the two armies of Catalonia and Aragon, both under his command, exceeded sixty-five thousand men, fifty-six thousand being present under arms. Thirty thousand were united in the field when he received Soult’s letter. There was nothing to prevent him marching upon Tortoza, except lord William Bentinck’s army which had just acknowledged by a retreat its inability to cope with him; there was nothing at all to prevent him marching to Lerida. The count of Bispal had thrown up his command from bad health, leaving his troops under Giron on the Echallar mountains. Sir Rowland Hill was at Roncesvalles, and not a man had moved from Wellington’s army. Elio and Roche were near Valencia in a starving condition. The Anglo-Sicilian troops only fourteen thousand strong including Whittingham’s division, were on the barren mountains above Hospitalet, where no Spanish army could remain; Del Parque’s troops and Sarzfield’s division had gone over the Ebro, and Copons’ Catalans had taken refuge in the mountains of Cervera. In fine not two hundred thousand but less than thirty-five thousand men, half-organized ill-fed and scattered from Vich to Vinaros were opposed to Suchet; and their generals had different views and different lines of operations. The Anglo-Sicilians could not abandon the coast, Copons could not abandon the mountains. Del Parque’s troops soon afterwards marched to Navarre, and to use lord Wellington’s phrase there was nothing to prevent Suchet “_tumbling lord William Bentinck back even to the Xucar_.” The true nature of the great insurrection which the French general pretended to dread shall be shown when the political condition of Spain is treated of.