But the English fleet was upon the coast, with encouragement and abundant supplies. After a little while, another Spanish army, twenty thousand strong, was rendezvoused at Molinas del Rey. St. Cyr again fell upon these troops. They fled so precipitately that but few were hurt. Their supplies, which the British had furnished them, were left upon the field. St. Cyr gathered up fifty pieces of cannon, three million cartridges, sixty thousand pounds of powder, and a magazine containing thirty thousand stand of English arms. Lord Collingwood, who commanded the British fleet, declared that all the elements of resistance in the province were dissolved. These events took place just before the fall of Saragossa. In the middle of February of this year, 1809, St. Cyr had twenty-three thousand men concentrated at Villa Franca. Forty thousand Spaniards were collected to attack him. Almost contemptuously, he took eleven thousand of his troops, surprised the Spaniards, and scattered them in the wildest flight. He pursued the fugitives, and wherever they made a stand dispersed them with but little effort or loss upon his own side. There was no longer any regular resistance in Catalonia, though guerrilla bands still prowled about the country. Thus the wretched, desolating warfare raged, month after month. Nothing of importance toward securing the abiding triumph of either party was gained. Whenever the French army withdrew from any section of country, British officers entered, to re-organize, with the aid of the Spanish priests, the peasants to renewed opposition, and British gold was lavished in paying the soldiers. Junot was taken sick, and Suchet, whom Napoleon characterized at Saint Helena as the first of his generals, was placed in command. We have not space to describe the numerous battles which were fought, and the patience of our readers would be exhausted by the dreary narration. The siege of Gerona by St. Cyr occupied seven months. Joseph was still in Madrid. As we have said, the more intelligent and opulent classes rallied around him. Sir Archibald Alison, ever the advocate of aristocratic privilege, while admitting the fact of Joseph's apparent popularity in Madrid, in the following strain of remark endeavors to explain that fact: