Contreras did not partake that confidence; his measures, however, were such as might support it. He established a military police; he formed the inhabitants into companies; and he employed the women in such services as they were capable of performing. On their part, indeed, a spirit was manifested such as the time required; no danger deterred them from administering refreshments to the soldiers at their stations, nor from bearing away the wounded: it was sometimes necessary to restrain their ardour, but on no occasion did it need excitement. The military chest was almost exhausted; the commander replenished it by levying a contribution upon those merchants who had retired to Villa Nueva with their effects. He gave ear to no overtures from the enemy of whatever kind. When Suchet proposed a suspension of hostilities, that the dead might be interred who lay in heaps around Fort Olivo, in sight from the ramparts of the city, even that proposal was rejected; and in that hot season of the year, and on that rocky soil where graves could not be dug, the French, for their own sakes, were compelled as long as the siege continued to consume the slain by fire.
They gave the fort which they had won the name of Salme, from the general who had fallen before it. And now their attacks were directed against Fort Francoli, which they reduced at length to such a state that the commandant found it necessary to abandon it as untenable, destroying such stores as he could not remove. Hitherto there had been no want of firmness in the besieged; but vigour, confidence, and unanimity were wanting among their leaders. Three members of the supreme Junta were in the city, in order that the civil power might through them afford all the aid which the military might require: this they did most unreservedly; but the proposals which they made met with no correspondent consideration, and the soldiers complained of the inaction in which they were kept. When Campoverde first entered the place, it was supposed that he had invested Sarsfield with powers to act for him both as governor-general of the province and ♦SARSFIELD.♦ commander in the field; but Sarsfield was soon called after him to Tarragona, and remained there after he had departed. This general was one of the best officers in the Spanish service for an inferior command, ... an intelligent, enterprising, intrepid, and honourable man; but he was punctilious and irritable, and thought less of his country and his duty than of his own personal importance, ... differing in this most widely from Eroles, of whose high reputation and higher virtues he was so jealous, that he regarded him with a dislike little short of personal enmity. This same unhappy temper made it impossible for him to act cordially with Contreras. In the field he might have been far more serviceable than in the fortress, for in the field it was that the best service might have been effected, and the French acknowledged and feared his activity as a partisan; but though he kept up that character in the sallies which he directed, his impractical disposition marred all his better qualities. What he did ♦CATALUÑA ATRIBULADA, 13.♦ was without consulting the governor; he neither thought it necessary to concert operations with him, nor even to inform him of the results.