The Bravest of the Brave — or, with Peterborough in Spain

by G. A. Henty

On the 22d another council of war was held at the Dutch General Schratenbach's quarters in the camp to consider two letters of the king, in which he again urged the allied generals to attack the city. He proposed that a battery of fifty guns should be erected to breach the wall between two of the bastions, and that the whole strength of the army should be thrown upon an assault. He acknowledged the force of the several objections to the attack, but urged that in such a case vigorous action was the safest. He dwelt upon the ruin that must fall upon such of his subjects as had declared for him if abandoned to their fate, and concluded by declaring that he at least would not desert them.

The appeal failed to move any of the council with the exception of Peterborough himself, and he alone voted, although in opposition to his own judgment, in compliance with the king's plan. Notwithstanding the adverse decision of the council the horses and dragoons were landed on the 24th.

On the 25th, the 26th, and the 28th the council again assembled to deliberate upon an earnest request of the king that they should attempt the siege for a period of eighteen days. The first decision was adverse, two only voting with Lord Peterborough for the siege. At the second council, his influence succeeded in obtaining a majority; but at the third, they agreed to abandon the attempt, even the commander in chief concurring.

The cause of this sudden reversal of their opinion was that none of the workmen whom they had demanded from the leaders of the Catalan peasantry had appeared, and they felt it impossible to carry on the works and erect the siege batteries without such assistance. Nevertheless the peasantry gave effectual aid in landing the artillery, tents, ammunition, and stores. On the 28th the king landed amid a great concourse of people, who received him with every demonstration of enthusiasm, and he could with difficulty make his way through them to the camp prepared for him near San Martino.

The presence of the king on shore added to the difficulties of the situation. He and his following of German courtiers complained bitterly of the disinclination of the allies to undertake the siege, while the allies were incensed against those who reproached them for not undertaking impossibilities. Dissension spread between the allies themselves, and the Dutch general declared that he would disobey the orders of the commander in chief rather than vainly sacrifice his men.

Peterborough was driven nearly out of his mind by the reproaches and recrimination to which he was exposed, and the quarrels which took place around him. He was most anxious to carry out his instructions, and as far as possible to defer to the opinion of Charles, but he was also bound by the decisions of the councils of war, which were exactly opposite to the wishes of the king.

The Prince of Hesse Darmstadt enraged him by insisting that fifteen hundred disorderly peasants whom he had raised were an army, and should be paid as regular soldiers from the military chest, while they would submit to no discipline and refused to labor in the trenches, and an open rupture took place, when the prince, in his vexation at the results of the councils of war, even went so far as to accuse the earl of having used secret influence to thwart the enterprise.

To add to the difficulties of the commander in chief the English troops were loud in their complaints against him for having landed and committed them to this apparently hopeless enterprise; but they nevertheless clamored to be led against the town, that they might not be said to have “come like fools and gone like cowards.”

Lord Peterborough confided his trouble and vexation freely to his young secretary. Jack was sincerely attached to his generous and eccentric chief, and the general was gratified by the young officer's readiness at all times and hours to come to him and write from his dictation the long letters and dispatches which he sent home. He saw, too, that he was thoroughly trustworthy, and could be relied upon to keep absolute silence as to the confidences which he made him.

In the midst of all these quarrels and disputes the siege was carried on in a languid manner. A battery of fifty heavy guns, supplied by the ships and manned by seamen, was placed upon a rising ground flanked by two deep ravines, and on several of the adjacent hills batteries of light field guns had been raised. Three weeks were consumed in these comparatively unimportant operations, and no real advance toward the capture of the place had been effected. Something like a blockade, however, had been established, for the Catalan peasants guarded vigilantly every approach to the town.