believe that three or four thousand French and Italians, the utmost that could be brought to bear in mass on one point, and that not an easy point, for the breach was narrow and scarcely practicable, would have carried the place against eight thousand Spaniards and two thousand British. But then the surf and the enemy’s shot at the landing-place, and the opinion of general Doyle and of captain Codrington and of the engineers! The enemy’s shot might have inflicted loss, but could not, especially at night, have stopped the disembarkation; and the opinion of the engineers, was a just report of the state of the walls, but in no manner touched the moral considerations. When the Roman Pompey was adjured by his friends not to put to sea during a violent storm he replied, “_it is necessary to sail—it is not necessary to live_.” It was also necessary to save Taragona! Was no risk to be incurred for so great an object? Was an uncertain danger to be weighed against such a loss to Spain? Was the British intrepidity to be set at nought? Were British soldiers to be quiet spectators, while Spaniards stood up in a fight too dangerous for them to meddle with? Is that false but common doctrine, so degrading to soldiers, that brick-and-mortar sentiment, that the courage of the garrison is not to be taken into account, to be implicitly followed? What if the Spaniards had been successful? The result was most painful! Taragona strongly fortified, having at different periods above fifteen thousand men thrown into it, with an open harbour and free communication by sea, was taken by less than twenty thousand French and Italian infantry, in the face of a succouring army, a British brigade, and a British fleet! 4º. The cruelty of the French general and the ferocity of his soldiers, have been dwelt upon by several writers, but Suchet has vindicated his own conduct, and it is therefore unnecessary here to enter into a close investigation of facts which have been distorted, or of reasoning which has been misapplied. That every barbarity, commonly attendant upon the storming of towns, was practised may be supposed; there is in the military institutions of Europe nothing calculated to arrest such atrocities. Soldiers of every nation look upon the devastation of a town taken by assault as their right, and it would be unjust to hold Suchet responsible for the violence of an army composed of men from different countries, exasperated by the obstinacy of the defence, and by a cruel warfare; in Spanish towns also the people generally formed a part of the garrison. OPERATIONS IN VALENCIA AND MURCIA. [Sidenote: See Vol. III.]