be trusted with the bayonet the pike would be a weapon hardly less efficient; but for these raw troops the want of fire-arms lessened the little confidence which they felt in themselves when they were brought to encounter soldiers as well disciplined as armed. ♦CABAÑES, II. 130–132.♦ Even the regular troops knew their own inferiority in the art of war. They were incapable of manœuvring in the face of an enemy; for so greatly had their discipline been neglected while no danger was apprehended, that they had gone through none of the rehearsals by which soldiers ♦CABAÑES, I. 78.♦ are prepared for real action; mere drilling seems to have been all the instruction they had received. ♦THE MARQUIS APPROACHES BARCELONA. SEPT. 1.♦ With this force, as ill officered as it was ill provided in all other respects, the Marques removed his head-quarters to Villa-franca, to maintain the line of the Llobregat, and take advantage of any opportunity for recovering Barcelona while the blockade was kept up. An expectation that something would be attempted by the inhabitants seems to have influenced the Spaniards to this measure, otherwise ill judged. The recovery of Barcelona was indeed an object of the greatest importance; but weakened as Duhesme then was, a few thousand Miquelets, with the armed population, would have sufficed to prevent the incursions of the garrison, and the Spaniards should have taken their post on the Pluvia instead of the Llobregat, with the Ter for their second position, and Gerona and Hostalrich to ♦MARSHAL GOUVION ST. CYR, 280.♦ support them, ... there they could best have impeded the efforts which the French would make for relieving and securing to themselves the strongest place in Spain. A British force might here have rendered the most essential service. Deputies from the Junta of Catalonia were sent to Madrid, to consult with the Council of Generals there upon the affairs of the province; and in the hope of obtaining British aid one of them proceeded to Lisbon to confer with Sir Hew Dalrymple. All that could be done in that quarter was effected; the Spanish troops in Lisbon were embarked for Catalonia; and the British Government, sensible of what might be effected there by timely measures, ordered thither 10,000 men from the army at that time stationed ♦BRITISH TROOPS ORDERED FROM SICILY, BUT DETAINED THERE BY THE COMMANDER.♦ in Sicily. But a feint of invading Sicily was made by Murat, who had succeeded Joseph Buonaparte as Intrusive King of Naples; and the troops were detained in an inactive and unworthy service, when they ought to have been co-operating for the most important ends with one of the finest and bravest people in the world. At no other time or place during the whole war could such a body of English troops have been employed to so much effect as at this time in Catalonia. Some petty jealousies or idle forms had hitherto deprived the Catalans also of cavalry when it might have been most useful.