from the immediate neighbourhood of Alicante, so that it could live upon the resources of the inland, where there were many fertile and well-peopled valleys. The main object, indeed, of James Campbell’s forward move was to get food for Whittingham’s and Roche’s divisions, which were (though paid by the British subsidy) dependent for their rations on the Spanish Government, and seldom received them. Local food for these troops had to be sought, as the only possible means of keeping them alive. In February the line of occupation reached as far as Biar, Castalla, and Xixona, all held by Whittingham’s division, while Roche and the Anglo-Sicilians were mostly in second line, at Elda, Monforte, and Alicante. But the problem of making the Anglo-Sicilian army a mobile force was not much further advanced in March 1813 than it had been in October 1812. The second weak point of the Alicante army was the extremely doubtful quality of some of its foreign elements. It is true that the German Legion battalions were as steady as those of the same corps in Wellington’s own army. But all the others were crammed with deserters from the enemy’s ranks, or prisoners of war who had enlisted in order to escape the miseries of the prison-camp or the hulks. The ‘Calabrese Free Corps’ was a trifle better than the rest, being mostly composed of genuine exiles. But the only difference between the recent recruits of Dillon’s cosmopolitan regiment in the British service and of the ‘Italian Levy’ and ‘Estero regiment’ was that the former corps contained more French and Swiss deserters, and the latter pair more Italians. All had the usual sprinkling of Poles, Dutch, Croats, and other miscellaneous adventurers. A lurid light was thrown upon their possibilities on February 11th, when 86 men of the 2nd Italian Levy deserted to the French lines, bringing over their officer as a prisoner. It was discovered that the rest of the battalion were in a plot to betray Xixona to Suchet, and with it one of Whittingham’s Spanish regiments, which was encamped beside them. There was just time to march in the 1 /27th and a second Spanish battalion, who surrounded and disarmed the Italians, before a French column appeared at dawn. It directed itself to the quarters from which the traitors had just been drawn off, was surprised to be received with a heavy fire, and rapidly withdrew [404]. Such an incident was certainly not calculated to inspire a timid general, like Sir John Murray, with any great craving for a bold offensive.