[23] For a good historical study of the fortifications of Gerona and their history, see Vacani, vol. iii. pp. 245-55.
[24] This last was done by public subscription, when the engineers pointed out the danger of the city being stormed across the river-bed. See Arteche, vii. 151. Belmas and Vacani do not seem to have known of this fact, as each of them makes the remark that if the Mercadal had been taken, a sudden rush might have taken the assailants across the shallow river and into the old town. It may be remarked that there had once been a river-wall, but that most of it had been allowed to fall into decay when the Mercadal was taken into the city defences.
[25] Manuscript notes of General Fournas, quoted by Arteche, vii. 458.
[26] The bishop gave his sanction to the formation of this strange corps; see his proclamation in Arteche’s Appendix vii. p. 539, dated June 9.
[27] Ultonia, the regiment of Ulster, still contained many officers of the old Jacobite strain, as may be seen by consulting the list of killed and wounded, where such names as O’Donnell, Macarthy, Nash, Fitzgerald, Pierson, Coleby, Candy, occur: but it had just been raised from 200 to 800 bayonets by filling the depleted cadre with Catalan recruits, and all the junior lieutenants, newly appointed, were Catalans also. So there was little Irish about it save the names of some of its senior officers.
[28] For the details of the composition of the Gerona garrison, see [Appendix no. 1].
[29] I know not why Napier, contrasting Gerona with Saragossa (ii. 251), says that at the former place the regular garrison was 3,000, the armed multitude ‘less than 6,000.’ When it is remembered that its total population was 14,000 souls—of whom some fled to places of safety before the siege began—and that it had already raised two battalions of miqueletes with 1,360 bayonets out of its able-bodied male inhabitants, it is difficult to see how more than 5,000 armed irregulars are to be procured, for in a population of 14,000 souls there cannot be more than some 3,000 men between eighteen and forty-five. As a matter of fact (see documents in Arteche, vii. Appendix 5), the ‘Crusade’ was about 1,100 strong at most.
[30] Vacani, iii. 211.
[31] See Belmas, iii. 516.
[32] See their letter in Appendix V to Belmas’s account of the siege.