TROOPS ENCAMP NEAR BARCELONA. 319 Prince of Hesse, our general gave orders to sail from Altea towards the bay of Barcelona, the chief city of Catalonia. Nevertheless, when we arrived there, he was very unwilling to land any of the forces, till he saw some probability of that assistance and succour so much boasted of, and so often promised. But as nothing appeared but some small numbers of men very indifferently armed, and without either gentlemen or officers at the head of them, the Earl of Peterborow I was of opinion, this could not be deemed sufficient encouragement for him to engage in an enterprise, which carried so poor a face of probability of success along with it. In answer to this it was urged, that till a descent was made, and the affair thoroughly engaged in, it was not to be ex=pected that any great numbers would appear, or that persons of condition would discover themselves. Upon all which it was resolved the troops should be landed. Accordingly our forces were disembarked, and immediately encamped; notwithstanding which, the number of = succours increased very slowly, and that after the first =straggling manner. Nor were those that did appear any way to be depended on; coming when they thought fit, and going away when they pleased, and not to be brought under any regular discipline. It was then pretended, that until they saw the artillery landed as well as forces, they would not believe any siege actually intended. This brought the general under a sort of necesity of complying in that also. Though certainly so to do must be allowed a little unreasonable, while the majority in all councils of war declared the design to be impracticable; and the Earl of Peterborow had positive orders to proceed according to such majorities. At last the Prince of Hesse was pleased to demand pay for those stragglers, as officers and soldiers, endeavouring to maintain that it could not be expected that men should venture their lives for nothing. Thus we came to Catalonia upon assurances of universal assistance; but found, when we came there, that we were to have none unless we paid for it. And as we were sent thither without money to pay for anything, it had certainly been for us more tolerable to have been in a country where we might have taken by force what we could not obtain any other way. However, to do the Miquelets all possible justice, I must say, that notwithstanding the number of them which hovered about the place, never much exceeded fifteen hundred men: . if sometimes more, oftener less; and though they never came under any command, but planted themselves where and as they pleased, yet did they considerable service in taking possession of all the country houses, and convents, that lay between the hills and the plain of Barcelona; by means whereof they rendered it impossible for the enemy to make any sorties or sallies at any distance from the town. And now began all those difficulties to bear, which long before, by the general, had been apprehended. The troops had continued under a state of inactivity for the space of three weeks, all which was spent in perpetual contrivances and disputes amongst ourselves, not with the enemy. In six several councils of war the siege or Barcelona, under the circumstances we then lay, was rejected as a madness and impossibility. And though the general and Brigadier Stanhope (afterward Earl Stanhope) consented to some effort, yet it was rather that some effort should be made to satisfy the expectation of the world, than with any hopes of success. However, no consent at all could be obtained from any council of war; and the Dutch general, in particular, declared that he would not obey even the commands of the Earl of Peterborow, if he should order the sacrifice of the troops under him in so unjustifiable a manner, without the consent of a council of war. And yet all those officers who refused their consent to the siege of Barcelona, offered to march into the country, and attempt any other place that was not provided with so strong and numerons a garrison; taking it for granted that no town in Catalonia, Barcelona excepted, could make long resistance; and in case the troops in that garrison should pursue them. they then might have an opportunity of fighting them at less disadvantage in the open field, than behind the walls of a place of such strength. And, indeed, should they have issued out on any such design, a defeat of those troops would have put the province of Catalonia, together with the kingdoms of Aragon and Valencia, into the hands of King Charles more effectually than the taking of Barcelona itself. Let it be observed, en passant, that by those offers of the land officers in a council of war, it is easy to imagine what | would have been the success of our troops had they marched directly from Valencia to Madrid. For if after two months DISSATISFACTION OF ARRANGEMENTS AT CATALONIA. 321 alarm, it was thought reasonable, as well as practicable, to march into the open country rather than attempt the siege of Barcelona, where forces equal, if not superior in number, were ready to follow us at the heels; what might not have been expected from an invasion by our troops when and where they could meet with little opposition? But leaving the consideration of what might have been, I shall now endeavour, at least with great exactness, to set down some of the most remarkable events from our taking to the relief of Barcelona. The repeated refusals of the councils of war for undertaking the siege of so strong a place, with a garrison so numerous, and those refusals grounded upon such solid reasons, against a design so rash, reduced the general to the utmost perplexity. The court of King Charles was immerged in complaint; all belonging to him lamenting the hard fate of that prince, to be brought into Catalonia only to return again, without the offer of any one effort in his favour. On the other hand, our own officers and soldiers were highly dissatisfied that they were reproached, because not disposed to enter upon and engage themselves in impossibilities. And, indeed, in the manner that the siege was proposed and insisted upon by the Prince of Hesse, in every of the several councils of war, after the loss of many men thrown away to no other purpose, but to avoid the shame, as the expression ran, of coming like fools and going away like cowards, it could have ended in nothing but a retreat at last. It afforded but small comfort to the earl to have foreseen all these difficulties, and to have it in his power to say, that he would never have taken the archduke on board, nor have proposed to him the hopes of a recovery of the Spanish monarchy from King Philip, if he could have imagined it probable, that he should not have been at liberty to pursue Înis own design, according to his own judgment. It must be allowed very hard for him, who had undertaken so great a work, and that without any orders from the government; and by so doing could have had no justification but by success; I say, it must be allowed to be very hard, after the undertaking had been approved in England, that he should find himself to be directed in this manner by those at a distance, upon ill-grounded and confident reports from Mr. Crow; and compelled, as it were, though general, to follow VOL. II. Y the sentiments of strangers, who either had private views of ambition, or had no immediate care or concern for the troops employed in this expedition. CHAPTER IV. EXTRA NEGLIGENCE OF THE GOVERNOR OF MONJOUICK SUCH were the present unhappy circumstances of the Earl of Peterborow in the camp before Barcelona :-impossibilities proposed; no expedients to be accepted; a court reproaching; councils of war rejecting; and the Dutch general refusing the assistance of the troops under his command; and, what surmounted all, a despair of bringing such animosities and differing opinions to any tolerable agreement. Yet all these difficulties, instead of discouraging the earl, set every faculty of his more afloat; and, at last, produced a lucky thought, which was happily attended with events extraordinary and scenes of success much beyond his expectation; such as the general himself was heard to confess, it had been next to folly to have looked for; as certainly, in prima facie, it would hardly have borne proposing, to take by surprise a place much stronger than Barcelona itself. True it is, that his only hope of succeeding consisted in this: that no person could suppose such an enterprise could enter into the imagination of man; and, without doubt, the general's chief dependence lay upon what he found true in the sequel; that the governor and garrison of Monjouick, by reason of their own security, would be very negligent, and very little upon their guard. However, to make the experiment, he took an opportunity, unknown to any person but an aid-de-camp that attended him, and went out to view the fortifications; and there being no horse in that strong fortress, and the Miquelets being ADVANTAGE OF POSITION AT BARCELONA. 323 possessed of all the houses and gardens in the plain, it was not difficult to give himself that satisfaction, taking his way by the foot of the hill. The observation he made of the place itself, the negligence and supineness of the garrison, together with his own uneasy circumstances, soon brought the earl to a resolution of putting his first conceptions in execution; satisfied as he was, from the situation of the ground between Monjouick and the town, that if the first was in our possession, the siege of the latter might be undertaken with some prospect of success. From what has been said, some may be apt to conclude, that the siege afterward succeeding when the attack was made from the side of Monjouick, it had not been impossible to have prevailed, if the effort had been made on the east side of the town, where our forces were at first encamped, and where only we could have made our approaches if Monjouick had not been in our power. But a few words will convince any of common experience of the utter impossibility of success upon the east part of the town, although many almost miraculous accidents made us succeed, when we brought our batteries to bear upon that part of Barcelona towards the west. The ground to the east was a perfect level for many miles, which would have necessitated our making our approaches in a regular way; and consequently our men must have been exposed to the full fire of their whole artillery. Besides, the town is on that side much stronger than any other; there is an outwork just under the walls of the town, flanked by the courtin and the faces of two bastions, which might have cost us half our troops to possess, before we could have raised a battery against the walls. Or supposing, after all, a competent breach had been made, what a wise piece of work must it have been to have attempted a storm, against double the number of regular troops within? On the contrary, we were so favoured by the situation when we made the attack from the side of Monjouick, that the breach was made and the town taken without opening of trenches, or without our being at all incommoded by any sallies of the enemy; as, in truth, they made not one during the whole siege. Our great battery, which consisted of upwards of fifty heavy cannon, supplied from the ships, and managed by the seamen, were placed upon a spot of rising |