Negotiation with Earl Moira 480 The old Ministry is re-established 483 Marquis Wellesley’s explanation 483 Earl Grey’s 485 Earl Moira’s reply 485 Mr. Stuart Wortley’s second motion 487 Lord Yarmouth’s statement 487 Lord Castlereagh’s speech 488 Pecuniary assistance to the Spaniards 492 Proposal concerning Spanish troops 493 Plan of a diversion from Sicily 493 HISTORY OF THE PENINSULAR WAR. CHAPTER XXXIII. CATALONIA. MEQUINENZA AND TORTOSA TAKEN. EXPEDITIONS ON THE COASTS OF BISCAY AND OF ANDALUSIA. GUERRILLAS. ♦1810.♦ While Lord Wellington detained in Portugal the most numerous of the French armies, defied their strength and baffled their combinations, events of great importance, both military and civil, were taking place in Spain. ♦MARSHAL MACDONALD SUCCEEDS AUGEREAU.♦ The command in Catalonia had devolved upon Camp-Marshal Juan Manuel de Villena, during the time that O’Donell was invalided by his wound. He had to oppose in Marshal Macdonald a general of higher reputation and of a better stamp than Augereau. Augereau had passed through the revolutionary war without obtaining any worse character than that of rapacity; but in Catalonia he manifested a ferocious and cruel temper, of which he had not before been suspected. Every armed Catalan who fell alive into his hand was sent to the gibbet: the people were not slow at reprisals, and war became truly dreadful when cruelty appeared on both sides to be only the exercise of vindictive justice: it was made so hateful to the better part of the German soldiers, and to the younger French also, whose hearts had not yet been seared, that they sought eagerly for every opportunity of fighting, in the hope of receiving wounds ♦VON STAFF, 296.♦ which should entitle them to their dismission, or, at the worst, of speedily terminating a life which was rendered odious by the service wherein they were engaged. ♦SIEGE OF MEQUINENZA.♦