On the 26th September, as related in the memoir of Blake, he led the advanced guard in the brilliant attempt to relieve Gerona. On the 13th October he broke out of the city, sword in hand, hewed a passage through the French blockade, and, falling on Sauham's quarters sabre _a la main_, forced that general to fly in his shirt, and successfully achieved one of the most daring enterprises of that memorable siege. In 1810, on succeeding Blake in command of the Catalonians--an appointment bestowed by the provincial Junta, who heard of his high reputation--he attacked Marshal Augereau with great fury, and drove him into Gerona. He took up a position at Vich, but on the approach of the French retired to the Col de Sespina, where he led a charge so fierce and decisive, that Sauham's battalions were hurled from the hills in confusion upon the plain. Marching to Manresa, he summoned the Miguelets from Lerida to his colours. These were a species of banditti who infested the mountains, and were armed with pistols, daggers, and blunderbusses. With 12,000 men, Henry O'Donnel took up a position at Maya in February, and harassed the French before Vich, where he fought and lost a severe battle, and was forced to retreat to the Sierras, and from thence to Tarragona, leaving a fourth of his men dead on the field. O'Donnel, "whose energy and military talents," says Napier, "were superior to all his predecessors," now sent Caro with 6000 men against the French at Villa Franca, where unfortunately they were all killed or captured; and being wounded, he was compelled for a time to resign the command to General Gasca.