advice, an avowal consonant to facts, since that officer urged him to raise the siege on the 9th and had even told him where four hundred draught bullocks were to be had, to transport his heavy artillery. On the 12th he opposed the spiking of the guns, and urged Murray to drag them to Cape Salou, of which place he had given as early as the third day of the siege, a military plan, marking a position, strong in itself, covering several landing places, and capable of being flanked on both sides by the ships of war: it had no drawback save a scarcity of water, yet there were some springs, and the fleet would have supplied the deficiency. [Sidenote: Vol. V. p. 512.] It is true that Donkin, unacquainted with Wellington’s instructions, and having at Castalla seen no reason to rely on sir John Murray’s military vigour, was averse to the enterprize against Taragona. He thought the allies should have worked Suchet out of Valencia by operating on his right flank. And so Wellington would have thought, if he had only looked at their numbers and not at their quality; he had even sketched such a plan for Murray, if the attack upon Taragona should be found impracticable. But he knew the Spaniards too well, to like such combinations for an army, two-thirds of which were of that nation, and not even under one head; an army ill-equipped, and with the exception of Del Parque’s troops, unused to active field operations. Wherefore, calculating their power with remarkable nicety, he preferred the sea-flank, and the aid of an English fleet. Here it may be observed, that Napoleon’s plan of invasion did not embrace the coast-lines where they could be avoided. It was an obvious disadvantage to give the British navy opportunities of acting against his communications. The French indeed, seized Santona and Santander in the Bay of Biscay, because, these being the only good ports on that coast, the English ships were thus in a manner shut out from the north of Spain. They likewise worked their invasion by the Catalonian and Valencian coast, because the only roads practicable for artillery run along that sea-line; but their general scheme was to hold, with large masses, the interior of the country, and keep their communications aloof from the danger of combined operations by sea and land. The providence of the plan was proved by Suchet’s peril on this occasion.