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 his 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 ge

neral, to follow 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.

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 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 ground, just large enough to contain our guns, with two deep hollow ways on each side the field, at each end whereof we had raised a little redoubt, which served to perserve our men from the shot of the town. Those little redoubts, in which we had some field-pieces, flanked the battery, and rendered it entirely secure from any surprise of the enemy. There were several other smaller batteries raised upon the hills adjacent, in places not to be approached, which, in a manner, rendered all the artillery of the enemy useless, by reason their men could not ply them but with the utmost danger; whereas, ours were secure, very few being killed, and those mostly by random shot.

But to return to the general. Forced as he was to take this extraordinary resolution, he concluded the readiest way to surprise his enemies, was to elude his friends. He therefore called a council of war ashore, of the land-officers; and aboard, of the admirals and sea-officers in both which it was resolved, that in case the siege of Barcelona was judged impracticable, and that the troops should be re-embarked by a day appointed, an effort should be made upon the kingdom of Naples. Accordingly, the day affixed being come, the heavy artillery, landed for the siege, was returned aboard the ships, and everything in appearance prepared for a re-embarkment. During which, the general was obliged to undergo all the reproaches of a dissatisfied court; and, what was more uneasy to him, the murmurings of the sea-officers, who, not so competent judges in what related to sieges, were one and all inclined to a design upon Barcelona; and the rather, because, as the season was so far spent, it was thought altogether improper to engage the fleet in any new undertaking. However, all things were so well disguised by our seeming preparations for a retreat, that the very night our troops were in march towards the attack of Mon

jouick, there were public entertainments and rejoicings in the town for the raising of the siege.

The prince of Hesse had taken large liberties in complaining against all the proceedings in the camp before Barcelona; even to insinuations, that though the earl gave his opinion for some effort in public, yet used he not sufficient authority over the other general officers to incline them to comply; throwing out withal some hints, that the general, from the beginning, had declared himself in favour of other operations, and against coming to Catalonia; the latter part whereof was nothing but fact. On the other side, the earl of Peterborow complained, that the boasted assistance was no way made good; and that, in failure thereof, his troops were to be sacrificed to the humours of a stranger; one who had no command, and whose conduct might bear a question whether equal to his courage. These reproaches of one another had bred so much ill-blood between those two great men, that for above a fortnight they had no correspondence, nor ever exchanged one word.

The earl, however, having made his proper dispositions, and delivered out his orders, began his march in the evening, with twelve hundred foot and two hundred horse, which, of necessity, were to pass by the quarters of the prince of Hesse. That prince, on their appearance, was told that the general was come to speak with him; and, being brought into his apartment, the earl acquainted him, that he had at last resolved upon an attempt against the enemy; adding, that now, if he pleased, he might be a judge of their behaviour, and see whether his officers and soldiers had deserved that character which he had so liberally given them. The prince made answer, that he had always been ready to take his share; but could hardly believe that troops marching that way could make any attempt against the enemy to satisfac