Under these feelings, the celebrated city of _Barcelona_, the capital of Catalonia, and one of the most ancient towns in Spain, was selected as the scene of the first attempt. Its situation on a plain near the sea, with a mole capable of containing only galleys and small ships, defended by ten bastions, several old towers, and other works, with a strong castle and citadel named _Montjuich_, on a hill on the west side, and commanding the town; the garrison consisting of between five and six thousand men under the Viceroy of Catalonia, Don Francisco de Velasco, while the besieging army was unable to bring more than seven thousand men into the lines; these circumstances, with the fact that in 1697 this fortress resisted the Duke of Vendôme, with a French army of thirty thousand men, eight weeks with open trenches, and cost the French monarch twelve thousand men, gave an interesting and romantic character to the enterprise, in which the THIRTY-SIXTH, and other regiments employed, gained much honour. It is also to be noticed, that it was the same Prince of Hesse Darmstadt who was now engaged in capturing what he had before so nobly defended; for it was a question whether the Duke of Vendôme gained more glory by the taking, than the Prince of Darmstadt by defending Barcelona, when employed in the Spanish service. The Earl of Peterborough landed his troops on the 23d and 24th of August near the river Bassoz, about three miles east of _Barcelona_. On the 28th of that month, King Charles came on shore, and several of the inhabitants of the neighbouring towns and villages greeted his landing with great acclamations. The progress of the siege was, however, retarded by opposite opinions and views entertained by the superior officers. It was at length determined to surprise the detached fortress of _Montjuich_, as proposed by the Prince of Hesse Darmstadt. The storming party of four hundred grenadiers, selected from the various corps employed in the siege, with a support of six hundred musketeers, commenced its march in the night of Sunday the 13th of September, round the mountains, and were followed by another detachment and a party of dragoons. The greater part of the way not being passable for above one man abreast, and the night very dark, the first detachment was nearly twelve hours on the march, and did not arrive at the foot of the mountain until break of day of the 14th of September; some Miquelets, in the service of the enemy, gave the alarm to the troops in the castle and in the town, so that the Prince of Hesse, on his arrival, found the garrison in arms, with guards in the outworks, who received the Confederates with a general discharge of artillery and small arms. Upon this the Prince of Hesse, and the Viscount Charlemont, Colonel of the THIRTY-SIXTH regiment, (who commanded on the 14th of September as Brigadier, in consequence of the indisposition of the Dutch Brigadier Schonenberg,) ordered