The rupture of the congress of Prague, Austria’s accession to the coalition, and the fall of San Sebastian were favourable circumstances; but he relied not much on the military skill of the banded sovereigns, and a great defeat might at any moment dissolve their alliance. Napoleon could then reinforce Soult and drive the allies back upon Spain, where the French still possessed the fortresses of Santona, Pampeluna, Jaca, Venasque, Monzon, Fraga, Lerida, Mequinenza, Figueras, Gerona, Hostalrich, Barcelona, Tortoza, Morella, Peniscola, Saguntum and Denia. Meanwhile lord William Bentinck, misled by false information, had committed a serious error in sending Del Parque’s army to Tudela, because the Ordal disaster and subsequent retreat shewed that Suchet was strong enough, if it so pleased him, to drive the Anglo-Sicilian army back even to the Xucar and recover all his strong places. In fine the affairs of Catalonia were in the same unsatisfactory state they had been in from the first. It was not even certain that a British army would remain there at all, for lord William assured of Murat’s defection was intent upon invading Italy; and the ministers seemed to have leaned towards the project, since Wellington now seriously desired to know whether the Anglo-Sicilians were to go or stay in Spain. [Sidenote: Wellington’s Dispatches, MSS.] Lord William himself had quitted that army, making the seventh change in fifteen months; this alone was sufficient to account for its misfortunes, and the Spanish generals, who had been placed under the English commander, ridiculed the latter’s ill success and spoke vauntingly of themselves. Strenuously did lord Wellington urge the appointment of some commander for the Anglo-Sicilian troops who would devote his whole attention to his business, observing that at no period of the war would he have quitted his own army even for a few days without danger to its interests. But the English minister’s ignorance of every thing relating to war was profound, and at this time he was himself being stript of generals. Graham, Picton, Leith, lord Dalhousie, H. Clinton, and Skerrit, had gone or were going to England on account of ill health wounds or private business; and marshal Beresford was at Lisbon, where dangerous intrigues to be noticed hereafter menaced the existence of the Portuguese army. Castaños and Giron had been removed by the Spanish regency from their commands, and O’Donnel, described as an able officer but of the most impracticable temper, being denied the chief command of Elio’s, Copons’, and Del Parque’s troops, quitted the army under pretext that his old wounds had broken out; whereupon, Giron was placed at the head of the Andalusians. The operations in Catalonia were however so important, that lord Wellington thought of going there himself; and he would have done so, if the after misfortunes of Napoleon in Germany, had not rendered it impossible for that monarch to reinforce his troops on the Spanish frontier.