Note 408 — SECTION XXXV: CHAPTER VI

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.