The Spanish army was now daily increasing; the tercios of Migueletes were augmented in number, and a regiment of hussars, that had been most absurdly kept in Majorca ever since the beginning of the insurrection, arrived at Taragona.
Mariano Alvarez, the governor of Gerona, was appointed to the command of the vanguard, composed of the garrisons of Gerona and Rosas, and of the corps of Juan Claros, and other partizans.
Francisco Milans and Milans de Bosch, with their Migueletes, kept the mountains to the northward and eastward of Barcelona; and while the latter hemmed in the French right, the former covered the district of El Vallés, and like a bird of prey watched the French foragers in the plain surrounding Barcelona.
Palacios remained at Villa Franca, and the count of Caldagues continued to guard the line of the Llobregat.
The little port of St. Felice de Quixols, near Palamos Bay, was filled with privateers, and the English frigates off the coast not only aided the Spaniards in all their enterprizes, but carried on a littoral warfare in the gulf of Lyons with great spirit and success.
During the month of September several petty skirmishes happened between the French marauding parties and the Migueletes about Barcelona; but on the 10th of October, Duhesme attacked and dislodged Francisco Milans from the mountains to the north of that city; and designing to forage the district of El Vallés, sent on the 11th a column of two thousand men along the sea coast towards Mattaro, with orders to turn from thence to the left, clear the heights beyond the Besos, of Migueletes, and push for Granollers on the route to Vich: this column he supported by a second of nearly equal strength, under general Millossewitz.
The first column reaching Granollers on the 12th, put the local junta of that district to flight, captured some provisions and other stores, and, finally, joined the second column, which was posted at Mollet. Millossewitz, leaving a part of his force at the pass of Moncada, then proceeded to San Culgat. Caldagues, hearing of this excursion, drew together three thousand infantry, a hundred and fifty cavalry, and six guns from his line on the Llobregat, and was in full march by the back of the mountains for the pass of Moncada, expecting to intercept the French in their return to Barcelona: Cabanes. but, falling in with them at San Culgat, a confused action ensued, and both sides claimed the victory; the French, however, retreated across the mountains to Barcelona without having foraged the district, and Caldagues returned to his former position, justly proud of this vigorous and soldier-like movement.
The 28th of October, Palacios quitted Catalonia to command the levies in the Sierra Morena. General Vives succeeded him, and the army was again reinforced by some infantry from Majorca. The Spanish regiments, released by the convention of Cintra, also arrived at Villa Franca, and seven or eight thousand Granadian levies were brought up to Tarragona by general Reding, and, at the same time, six thousand men drafted from the army of Aragon, reached Lerida, under the command of the marquis de Lazan.
The whole force, including the garrisons of Hostalrich, Gerona, and Rosas, was now not less than thirty-six thousand men; of which twenty-two St. Cyr.
Doyle’s Correspondence, MSS. thousand infantry, and twelve hundred cavalry, were in the neighbourhood of Barcelona, or in march for the Llobregat. This force, organized in six divisions, of which the troops in the Ampurdan formed one, took the name of the army of the right, and Vives seeing himself at the head of such a power, and in possession of all the hills and rivers encircling Barcelona, resolved to besiege that city.