each commander of a separate corps might have refused to march. For the occasion of our moving towards Almanza, I must beg leave to refer to my Narrative, where I have mentioned more at large, that in order to execute the resolutions of those councils of war, where it was agreed we should march to Madrid by the way of Arragon, but first destroy the enemy’s magazines on the frontiers of Valencia, I went with the Marquis das Minas in the beginning of April to Yecla, where the enemy’s chief magazines lay, and from thence to Villena, where we had advice of their troops being assembled at Almanza, upon which that council was held wherein the battle was unanimously resolved on.
[Here I omit Lord Galway’s opinion concerning the Toulon question, as I have quoted it in Book II. Chapter III., Section 16.]
“What his Lordship says concerning a project that was formed for the taking of Origuela before the opening of the campaign is very true; but that project being afterwards found impracticable for want of provisions, and the campaign drawing near, the Earl Rivers’ troops, which after their landing at Alicant, had been quartered in the nearest and most commodious towns for their reception, were ordered to remove to Oya de Castalla (two short days’ march from the places where they lay before) that the enemy might not get between them and the rest of our quarters to surprise us.
“In the Earl’s answer to the fifth question,[1] he says — ‘The King of Spain, when the troops were marching into Murcia towards the enemy, assembled a council of war to no other purpose, but to send by the hands of his secretary a protest with the reasons why he would not march with the army, but go to protect his subjects in Catalonia; the contents of which protest the Earl very well remembers, having had a copy of it by the king’s order.’ His lordship’s memory, as positive as he is, must have failed him extremely in this matter. For the army never did march into Murcia, nor any part of it, except a detachment of the troops under his lordship’s command: which returned from thence with very ill success. And whatever he may aver to have been the reason of the King of Spain’s leaving the army and going to Catalonia, ’tis certain his journey thither was fixed long before the army assembled, for no other reason that I ever yet heard of, but because he had a mind to redress some disorders there. And His Majesty always promised to be back again by the time our army should be ready to take the field. And it is notoriously known that the reasons for that journey were thought so insufficient, that not only all the foreign generals and ministers, but even the city and kingdom of Valencia, by their deputies, protested against it.
“As to what the Earl of Peterborow is pleased to say concerning those instruments which he has to produce as proofs of the King of Spain’s having been over-ruled on many occasions in what he proposed for the public service. I can only reply, that I do not remember to have seen any of those proofs — except a letter of the King of Spain to his lordship, where His Majesty observes that the English, Portuguese, and Dutch Generals had refused him men to send to Majorca, in councils of war held on the 17th and 19th of January (from whence I hope I may reasonably infer the great probability of these generals being of opinion, but two days before, against dividing the troops). And I must say, my behaviour to the King of Spain, while I had the honour to serve under him, was such, that he never had occasion to complain against me by his ministers to the Queen, as he did most strenuously by the Count of Gallas against the Earl of Peterborow.
Printed by Turnbull & Spears, Edinburgh,
- ↑ Fifth Question. “What the motives were of the King of Spain’s leaving the army when it was resolved to march towards Madrid and towards the enemy? — and whether there were any orders pretended from England for those measures? [Lord Peterborough took no notice of the latter part of this question, having attacked Mr. Stanhope in his answer to Question Fourth.]
