Passing by the details of successive conflicts sustained with unequal success by the Spanish forces in opposing their invaders, it may be sufficient generally to state, that their inability to maintain the defensive positions assumed, without English co-operation, was evident. An attempt was at length made by the French forces, under Marshal Victor, to gain possession of Cadiz, situate in the Isle of Leon, in Andalusia, the finest port in Spain, with a mercantile and wealthy population of a hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants. For this purpose preparations of extraordinary magnitude were made. The assaulting army was spread quite round the margin of the harbour. Works of contravallation were constructed not less than twenty-five miles in extent, and strong batteries frowned upon the city wherever they could be erected with advantage to the besiegers. The lines of blockade were connected by a covered way concealed by thick woods, and when finished mounted three hundred guns. On the other hand, the Spanish troops under Albuquerque, composing the garrison, were in a miserable condition. The whole had been long without pay, and the greater part without arms or accoutrements. Men were placed in command destitute of energy or local influence, and private traffic was unblushingly pursued with the public stores. Albuquerque was afterwards sent ambassador to England, where he died soon after of a frenzy, brought on, it is said, by grief and passion at the unworthy treatment he received. In this deplorable state of affairs, British troops again 85appeared, and the surrender of the city by that means was averted. On the 11th of February, 1810, General Stewart arrived in Cadiz with three thousand men, who were received with enthusiastic joy. On the 17th of the same month, thirteen hundred Portuguese arrived, and Spanish troops in small bodies came in daily. Two ships of war, the Euthalion and Undaunted, arrived from Mexico, with six millions of dollars; and other British troops having appeared, the whole force assembled behind the Santa Petri was not fewer than eighteen thousand effective men. The worst symptom was, that among the Spaniards there was little enthusiasm, and not a man among the citizens had been enrolled or armed, or had volunteered either to labour or fight. General Stewart’s first measure was to recover Matagorda, a most important point, about four thousand yards from the city, which the Spaniards had foolishly dismantled and abandoned. In the night of the 22nd, a detachment, consisting of fifty marines and seamen, twenty-five artillerymen, and sixty-seven of the 94th regiment, the whole under the command of Captain M’Lean, pushed across the channel during a storm and took possession of the dismantled fort, before morning effected a solid lodgment, and although the French cannonaded the work with field artillery all the next day, the garrison was immovable.