[406] That veritable ‘stormy petrel of politics,’ Sir Robert Wilson, was passing through Sicily in May, and seems to have acted a mischievous part in visiting the Queen, and allowing her to set before him all her grievances against Bentinck, and the ‘Jacobin Parliament’ that he was setting up. She told Wilson that Bentinck ‘went to jails and took evidence of miserable wretches, actual malefactors or suspects, inducing them to say what he wished for his plans, and acting without any substantiating facts.’ As to the army Wilson gathered that ‘the Neapolitan soldiery hate us to a man, the Germans would adhere to us, the native Sicilians at least not act against us.’ But there were only 2,000 Sicilians and 1,900 Germans, and 8,000 Neapolitans and other Italians, eminently untrustworthy. [So untrustworthy were they, indeed, that the Italian corps sent to Spain in the autumn deserted by hundreds to the French.] See Wilson’s Private Diary, 1812-15, pp. 35-62.
[407] For details, see table in [Appendix no. XIII].
[408] Suchet’s correspondence (in the Archives of the French War Ministry) begins to be anxious from July 6 onward. On that date he hears that ships are at Alicante to take Roche on board, who is to join a very large English force, and 15,000 (!) men from Majorca. On July 13th he hears that Maitland is to have 17,000 men, though only 3,000 British regulars.
[409] Wellington to Lord Bathurst, July 14: ‘I have this day received a letter from Lord W. Bentinck of the 9th of June, from which I am concerned to observe that his Lordship does not intend to carry into execution the operation on the east coast of the Peninsula, until he shall have tried the success of another plan on the coast of Italy. I am apprehensive that this determination may bring upon us additional forces of the Army of Aragon: but I still hope that I shall be able to retain at the close of this campaign the acquisitions made at its commencement.’ Dispatches, ix. p. 285.
[410] No silver crowns had been coined since 1760 at the Mint. They weighed 463 grains: the Spanish dollar only 415 grains.
[411] See Wellington to Lord Bathurst. Dispatches, vii. p. 370.
[412] Ibid., vii. p. 319.
[413] Wellington to Lord Liverpool, April 22. Supplementary Dispatches, vii. p. 318.
[414] Campbell to Shawe. Supplementary Dispatches, vii. p. 362.
[415] Wellington to Bathurst. Dispatches, ix. p. 277.