During his absence Eroles had secretly been preparing a general insurrection to break out when the British army should arrive, and it was supposed that his object was to effect a change in the government of the province; for though Lacy himself again spoke of embodying the Somatenes if arms were given to him by sir Edward Pellew, there was really no scarcity of arms, the demand was a deceit to prevent the muskets from being given to the people, and there was no levy. Hence the discontent increased and a general desire for the arrival of the British troops became prevalent; the miserable people turned anxiously towards any quarter for aid, and this expression of conscious helplessness was given in evidence by the Spanish chiefs, and received as proof of enthusiasm by the English naval commanders, who were more sanguine of success than experience would warrant. All eyes were however directed towards the ocean, the French in fear, the Catalans in hope; and the British armament did appear off Palamos, but after three days, spread its sails again and steered for Alicant, leaving the principality stupified with grief and disappointment. This unexpected event was the natural result of previous errors on all sides, errors which invariably attend warlike proceedings when not directed by a superior genius, and even then not always to be avoided. It has been shewn how ministerial vacillation marred lord William Bentinck’s first intention of landing in person with ten or twelve thousand men on the Catalonian coast; and how after much delay general Maitland had sailed to Palma with a division of six thousand men, Calabrians, Sicilians and others, troops of no likelihood save that some three thousand British and Germans were amongst them. This force was afterwards joined by the transports from Portugal having engineers and artillery officers on board, and that honoured battering train which had shattered the gory walls of Badajos. Wellington had great hopes of this expedition; he had himself sketched the general plan of operations; and his own campaign had been conceived in the expectation, that lord William Bentinck, a general of high rank and reputation, with ten thousand good troops, aided with at least as many Spanish soldiers, disciplined under the two British officers Whittingham and Roche, would have early fallen on Catalonia to the destruction of Suchet’s plans. And when this his first hope was quashed, he still expected that a force would be disembarked of strength, sufficient, in conjunction with the Catalan army, to take Taragona. [Sidenote: August.] [Sidenote: Gen. Donkin’s papers, MSS.]