Russian representative at the Court of St. James’s, declared that he had never heard of the offer, that he was sure that no such scheme would be approved by the Tsar, and that there was certainly no Russian corps now available for service in the Mediterranean. Admiral Greig had once communicated to him a scheme for a Russian auxiliary force to be used in Italy--but this was a plan completely out of date, when the whole Russian army was wanted for Germany[319]. Wellington had therefore to explain to the Spanish and Portuguese Governments that his proposals to them had been made under a complete misapprehension: his _amour-propre_ was naturally hurt--Greig and Mackenzie had put him in an absurd position. Prince Lieven’s mention of Italy takes us to another of Wellington’s worries. It has been mentioned in the preceding volume that Lord William Bentinck, commanding the British Army in Sicily, had already in 1812 been planning descents on Italy, where he rightly thought the French military strength was low, after the departure of the whole of the Viceroy’s contingent for the Russian War, and of many of Murat’s Neapolitans also. So set had he been on expeditions to Calabria or Tuscany, that he had made great difficulties when ordered to send out the Alicante expedition to favour Wellington’s Salamanca campaign[320]. The news of the Russian disaster had filled Bentinck’s mind with new Italian schemes--the conditions were even more favourable than in 1812. He was now dreaming of invading Italy with all the men he could muster, and proposed on February 24th to the British War Minister that he should be allowed to withdraw all or some of the Anglo-Sicilian troops from Alicante. He had also seen Admiral Greig, and put in a claim for the hypothetical 15,000 Russians who had caused Wellington so much trouble. Knowing how much importance the latter attached to the Alicante Army, as the real nucleus of resistance to Suchet in Eastern Spain, he had the grace to send copies of his February dispatch to Freneda.