It has been remarked with great justice, that until the Peninsular war had been for some time in progress, the military enterprises of Great Britain invariably failed from the blind policy of those who planned them. Instead of condensing the power of the empire into one grand and sustained effort, its strength was frittered away in paltry and unprofitable expeditions. An army, imposing in its full integrity, if subdivided into corps, and employed on detached services, and in different countries, can achieve nothing beyond a partial success--for soon after its divided brigades are landed on their scenes of action, their weakness produces their discomfiture, and they retire necessarily before a superior force. In the first moment of disembarkation it may create a temporary alarm; but beyond this no object can be gained, and the result ends in an idle demonstration. Political details are generally unconnected with the actual occurrences on the battle-field; and it will be enough to remark, that Sicily should have at this period commanded more attention from England than she did. Naturally defensible, with a well-affected population of nearly a million and a half, she had been taught to place but little reliance on her allies. One British corps held Messina,--but a French force was moving to the extremity of Calabria, avowedly to drive it from the island. Though well-affected, the Sicilians were distrustful; they feared that they should be abandoned to the vengeance of those troops who had already overrun Naples,--and they believed that the British regiment waited only until the French army should make its descent, when they would embark for Malta, and leave the Sicilians to their fate. At this time, Sir John Stuart succeeded Sir James Craig, a man best described by terming him an “old-school commander.” Under him the army had been totally inactive: and eight thousand excellent troops were permitted to occupy their quarters idly, when so much depended upon a bold, even though not a very fortunate, display of energy in the British. Stuart at once perceived the mischievous consequences this indolence of his predecessor had occasioned; and he determined by active operations to redeem the British army from the apathetic character it had too justly obtained among the Sicilian people.