[406] See his letter of March 19th, written after the skirmish: ‘Our army is concentrating itself, and a few days I hope will bring on a general action, in which I hope to play my part’ (Memoirs, p. 188).
[407] Murray to Wellington. Supplementary Dispatches, xiv. p. 200.
[408] Napier blames the British Government for having got things into such a position of double command that Bentinck could withdraw from Spain troops which he had sent there, and which had passed under Wellington’s authority (v. p. 54). Wellington seems to have made no objection to this particular recall (Dispatches, vii. p. 260), thinking (I suppose) that the risk of losing Sicily was much more serious than the deduction of 2,000 men from the Alicante side-show. He wrote at any rate to Murray to send them off at once, if he had not done so already. The fault, of course, lay with Bentinck, for denuding Sicily before he was sure of the stability of the new Constitution.
[409] Murray to Wellington, April 2. Supplementary Dispatches, vii. p. 605. The 6th K.G.L. was present at Castalla on April 13th.
[410] Wellington, Dispatches, x. p. 162.
[411] The best account of all this from the Spanish point of view is a dispatch written by Colonel Potons y Moxica, Elio’s chief of the staff, in the Record Office, ‘East Coast of Spain’ file. It is equally valuable for the battle of Castalla.
[412] Consisting of 2/27th British, Calabrese Free Corps, 1st Italian Levy, and the rifle companies of 3rd and 8th K.G.L.
[413] Two squadrons 20th Light Dragoons, the troop of Foreign Hussars, and some of Whittingham’s Spaniards, two squadrons of Olivenza.
[414] I do not know who was commanding this division (3rd of the Murcian army) in April: its divisional general, Sarsfield, was absent. It included Bailen, Badajoz, America, Alpujarras, Corona, and Guadix: O’Ronan had it in the preceding autumn.
[415] Potons y Moxica’s dispatch says that ‘la entrega del castillo provino de una especie de sedicion en la tropa de Velez Malaga,’ which is conclusive. Why Napier (v. 57) calls Velez Malaga ‘the finest regiment in the Spanish army’ I cannot conceive. It was one of O’Donnell’s old regiments, cut to pieces at Castalla in the preceding July, and hastily filled up with drafts. I suspect that Napier is paraphrasing Suchet’s description of this corps as ‘mille hommes de belles troupes.’ Except that they had been recently re-clothed from the British subsidy, there was nothing ‘fine’ about them.