There was a subsidiary set of directions for a policy to be carried out if the transports available at Alicante should be found insufficient to move so many as 10,000 men. But as the shipping proved enough to carry 14,000, these directions have only an academic interest. In this case Murray and Elio were to threaten the line of the Xucar frontally, while Del Parque turned it on the side of the mountains of the interior. Duran and Villacampa were to devote themselves to cutting the line of communications between Suchet and the King. In this way employment would be found for all the French on the East Coast, for Copons was to receive a reinforcement of 3,000 men, and was to keep Decaen on the move by raids and forays. Finally, and this clause governed the whole of the instructions, ‘the General Officers at the head of the troops must understand that the success of all our endeavours in the ensuing campaign depends on _none of the corps being beaten_. They must not attack the enemy in strong positions: I shall forgive _anything_ excepting that one of the corps should be beaten and dispersed.’ Wellington afterwards said that this warning was intended for Elio and Del Parque only, but it had a deleterious effect during the ensuing operations on all the actions of the timid and wavering Murray. To say to such an officer that it would be a sin not to be forgiven if he let his corps get beaten under any circumstances, was to drive him to a policy of absolute cowardice. Wellington was an austere master, and the mental effect of such a threat was to make Murray resolve that he would not take even small and pardonable risks. The main idea that he had in his head in May and June 1813 was that he ‘must not allow his corps to be beaten and dispersed.’ Hence, like the unprofitable servant in the parable, he was resolved to wrap it up in a napkin, and have it ready to return to his master intact--though thereby he might condemn himself to make no worthy use of it whatever while it was in his hands. The threat of the Commander-in-Chief might have been addressed profitably to Robert Craufurd; when administered to John Murray it produced terror and a sort of mental paralysis. It is true that Murray’s weakness of will and instability of purpose were so great that he would probably, in any case, have made a very poor game from the splendid cards put into his hand. But that the Tarragona expedition ended in the discreditable fiasco which we shall have to narrate, was undoubtedly the result in part of the impression which Wellington’s orders produced on his wavering mind. Yet, contemptible as his conduct of operations was, still Suchet was kept employed in the East and gave no help to King Joseph. That much was secured by Wellington’s knowledge of how sea-power can be used.