By these operations, Del Parque, now joined by the Grenadan troops from Alcaraz, was separated from Elio, and Suchet was relieved from a danger which he had dreaded too much, and by his own inaction contributed to increase. It is true he had all the sick men belonging to the king’s and to Soult’s army on his hands, but he had also many effective men of those armies; and though the yellow fever had shewn itself in some of his hospitals, and though he was also very uneasy for the security of his base in Aragon, where the Partida warfare was reviving, yet, with a disposable force of fifteen thousand infantry, and a fine division of cavalry, he should not have permitted Elio to pass his flank in the manner he did. He was afraid of the Sicilian army which had indeed a great influence on all the preceding operations, for it is certain that Suchet would otherwise have detached troops to Madrid by the Cuenca road, and then Soult would probably have sought a battle between the Tagus and the Guadarama mountains; but this influence arose entirely from the position of the Alicant army, not from its operations, which were feeble and vacillating. Maitland had resigned in the beginning of October, and his successor Mackenzie immediately pushed out some troops to the front, and there was a slight descent upon Xabea by the navy, but the general remained without plan or object, the only signs of vitality being a fruitless demonstration against the castle of Denia, where general Donkin disembarked on the 4th of October with a detachment of the eighty-first regiment. The walls had been represented as weak, but they were found to be high and strong, and the garrison had been unexpectedly doubled that morning, hence no attack took place, and in the evening a second reinforcement arrived, whereupon the British re-embarked. However the water was so full of pointed rocks that it was only by great exertions lieutenant Penruddocke of the Fame could pull in the boats, and the soldiers wading and fighting, got on board with little loss indeed but in confusion. [Sidenote: Suchet’s official correspondence, MS.]