His judgment was not less accurate as to what was, ♦MÉMOIRES, 1. 13–18.♦ in this instance, to be expected from the Spaniards, who were still destined to suffer for the weakness of their government, the want of union in their leaders, and the want of system which was felt in every ♦EROLES INTRODUCES TROOPS INTO FIGUERAS.♦ department. Eroles, indeed, acted on this emergency as he always did, with promptitude, and vigour, and ability. Collecting all the force he could, he hastened from Martorell to reinforce the garrison of Figueras, and on his way took the forts which the French had erected in Castelfollit and Olot, and made above 500 prisoners there. Though a considerable ♦APRIL 16.♦ force had already been collected to blockade the place, he entered it on the sixth day after its capture, with 1500 infantry, 150 horse, and about 50 artillerymen, losing on the way some forty killed and sixty wounded; but the French battalion, which endeavoured to prevent his entrance, suffered ♦THE FRENCH BLOCKADE IT.♦ more than a threefold loss. General Baraguay d’Hilliers had by that time brought together about 8000 troops for the blockade, nearly half of which had been called off from blockading the Seu d’Urgel, and had made a circuitous march within the French border. All posts of minor importance they immediately abandoned, retaining only Rosas, Gerona, and Hostalrich, in that part of Catalonia, and even weakening the garrison of Gerona so much, that that place might have been recovered by a second _Rovirada_, had there been another Rovira to conduct one. But there was little concert among the Catalan leaders; it was deemed fortunate that Eroles had not been obliged to require the co-operation of another body, which from its position he might have looked to for aid, because there was ill blood between that body and the corps which he commanded. His arrival was well-timed, for the garrison was disorderly as well as weak, ... more enterprising than wary, ... not to be restrained from making rash sallies against the blockading force; and they had also 1500 prisoners to guard, whom, for their own security, they were compelled to confine so closely, that they were in reasonable apprehension lest disease and infection should be the consequences. But supplies were as needful as reinforcements; wine and oil were especially wanted. The Spaniards, with more alertness than they often exerted, sent off a convoy of stores with one of their frigates from Tarragona: it came into the bay of Rosas three days after Eroles had entered the fortress, but it had to wait off shore, vainly expecting that a sufficient force for escorting it might be collected. The British squadron off that coast was too weak to afford any effectual assistance. Captain Buller, taking immediate advantage of the enemy’s departure from those places, had landed at Palamos, St. Feliu, Cadeques, and Selva, embarked their guns and destroyed their batteries; a useful service for the time, but one which could not affect the operations on the land, and the commander-in-chief in the Mediterranean, who was applied to for some ships of the line, could spare none from his own anxious station, where all his vigilance was required for watching those ports in France from whence the enemy might look for reinforcements or supplies. In Valencia, where there were most means, there was least energy; and in Tarragona, where alacrity was not wanting, it was necessary to wait for the new levies before they could venture to send from thence any considerable body of old soldiers with which Campoverde might undertake the relief of the blockaded fortress, lest Suchet, if his preparations for besieging that city were anything more than a feint, should find it in a state of insecurity and weakness.