Such an opportune offer to create a diversion on the left flank of the French armies was eagerly accepted by Wellington, who immediately sent engineers, artificers, and a battering train complete, to aid the expected expedition. But lord William Bentinck was soon made sensible, that in large communities working constitutions are the offspring, and not the generators, of national feelings and habits. They cannot be built like cities in the desert, nor cast, as breakwaters, into the sea of public corruption, but gradually, and as the insect rocks come up from the depths of the ocean, they must arise, if they are to bear the storms of human passions. The Sicilian court opposed lord William with falsehood and intrigue, the constitution was secretly thwarted by the barons, the Neapolitan army, a body composed of foreigners of all nations, was diligently augmented, with a view to overawe both the English and the people; the revenues and the subsidy were alike misapplied, and the native Sicilian army, despised and neglected, was incapable of service. Finally, instead of going to Spain himself, with ten thousand good troops, lord William could only send a subordinate general with six thousand—British, Germans, Calabrese, Swiss, and Sicilians; the British and Germans only, being either morally or militarily well organised. To these, however, Roche’s and Whittingham’s levies, represented to be twelve or fourteen thousand strong, were added, the Spanish government having placed them at the disposition of general Maitland, the commander of the expedition. Thus, in May, twenty thousand men were supposed ready for a descent on Catalonia, to which quarter lord Wellington recommended they should proceed. But now other objects were presented to lord William Bentinck’s sanguine mind. The Austrian government, while treating with Napoleon, was secretly encouraging insurrections in Italy, Croatia, Dalmatia, the Venetian states, the Tyrol, and Switzerland. English, as well as Austrian agents, were active to organise a vast conspiracy against the French emperor, and there was a desire, especially on the part of England, to create a kingdom for one of the Austrian archdukes. Murat was discontented with France, the Montenegrins were in arms on the Adriatic coast, and the prospect of a descent upon Italy in unison with the wishes of the people, appeared so promising to lord William Bentinck, that supposing himself to have a discretionary power, he stopped the expedition to Catalonia, reasoning thus.