Such was the state of the province when intelligence that the Anglo-Sicilian expedition had arrived at Mahon, excited the hopes of the Spaniards and the fears of the French. The coast then became the great object of interest to both, and the Catalans again opened a communication with the English fleet by Villa Nueva de Sitjes, and endeavoured to collect the grain of the Campo de Taragona. Decaen, coming to meet Suchet who had arrived at Reus with two thousand men, drove the Catalans to the hills again; yet the Lerida district was thus opened to the enterprises of Lacy, because it was at this period that Reille had detached general Paris from Zaragoza to the aid of Palombini; and that Severoli’s division was broken up to reinforce the garrisons of Lerida, Taragona, Barcelona, and Zaragoza. But the army of the Ebro being dissolved, Lacy resolved to march upon Lerida, where he had engaged certain Spaniards in the French service to explode the powder magazine when he should approach; and this odious scheme, which necessarily involved the destruction of hundreds of his own countrymen, was vainly opposed by Eroles and Sarzfield. [Sidenote: Sarzfield’s Vindication, MSS.] On the 12th of July, Eroles’ division, that general being absent, was incorporated with Sarzfield’s and other troops at Guisona, and the whole journeying day and night reached Tremp on the 13th. Lacy having thus turned Lerida, would have resumed the march at mid-day, intending to attack the next morning at dawn, but the men were without food, and exhausted by fatigue, and fifteen hundred had fallen behind. A council of war being then held, Sarzfield, who thought the plot wild, would have returned, observing that all communication with the sea was abandoned, and the harvests of the Camps de Taragona and Valls being left to be gathered by the enemy, the loss of the corn would seriously affect the whole principality. Displeased at the remonstrance, Lacy immediately sent him back to the plain of Urgel with some infantry and the cavalry, to keep the garrison of Balaguer in check; but in the night of the 16th when Sarzfield had reached the bridge of Alentorna on the Segre, fresh orders caused him to return to Limiana on the Noguera. Meanwhile Lacy himself had advanced by Agen towards Lerida, the explosion of the magazine took place, many houses were thrown down, two hundred inhabitants and one hundred and fifty soldiers were destroyed; two bastions fell, and the place was laid open. [Sidenote: Captain Codrington’s Papers, MSS.]