3º. The usual negligence, and slowness of the Spaniards, was apparent during this campaign; although resolution, perseverance, and talent were evinced by Suchet in all his operations, the success was in a great measure due to the faults of his opponents, and amongst those faults colonel Skerrett’s conduct was prominent. It is true that captain Codrington and others agreed in the resolution not to land; that there was a heavy surf, and that the engineers predicted on the 27th that the wall would soon be beaten down; but the question should have been viewed in another light by colonel Skerrett. Taragona was the bulwark of the principality, the stay and hope of the war. It was the city of Spain whose importance was next to Cadiz, and before its walls the security or the ruin of Valencia as well as of Catalonia was to be found. Of the French scarcely fourteen thousand infantry were under arms, and those were exhausted with toil. The upper town, which was the body of the place, was still unbreached, it was only attacked upon one narrow front, and behind it the Rambla offered a second and a more powerful defence. There were, to use the governor’s expression, within the walls “_eight thousand of the most warlike troops in Spain_,” and there was a succouring army without, equal in number to the whole infantry of the besiegers. Under these circumstances the stoutest assailants might have been repulsed, and a severe repulse would have been fatal to the French operations. Captain Codrington asserts that in the skirmishes beyond the walls, the valour of the garrison was eminent; and he saw a poor ragged fellow endeavouring, such was his humanity and greatness of mind, to stifle the burning fuze of a shell with sand, that some women and children might have time to escape. Feeling and courage, the springs of moral force, were therefore not wanting, but the virtue of the people was diminished, and the spirit of the soldiery overlaid, by the bad conduct of their leaders. The rich citizens fled early to Villa Nueva, and they were followed by many superior officers of regiments; Contreras jealous of Sarsfield had obliged him, as we have seen, to quit his post at a critical moment, and then represented it to the garrison as a desertion; the Valencians were carried off after being one day in the place, and the Murcians came without arms; and all this confusion and mischief were so palpable, that the poor Spanish soldiers could anticipate nothing but failure if left to themselves, and it was precisely for this reason that the British should have been landed to restore confidence. And is there nothing to be allowed for the impetuous fury of an English column breaking out of the place at the moment of attack? Let it be remembered also, that in consequence of the arrival of a seventy-four, convoying the transports, such was the number of ships of war, that a thousand seamen and marines might have been added to the troops; and who can