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Rh foot soldiers ; Charles should stay at Barcelona till the requisite preparations had been made. The troops, whom Peterborough accompanied, were landed at the Grao on 24 May, but Peterborough's statements at the council that there would be no difficulty about transport proved misleading; there was no money, and without money there was no transport (ib. xxv. 40-1). Peterborough, for the time, gave up the plan of a march on Madrid, engaged the troops in scattered expeditions, and wrote to the king `that he had received such instructions and limitations about the public money, that he could no longer subsist the troops which he had with him in Valencia, much less could he supply him with any money for his journey to Madrid; that his troops were very sickly; that baggage mules and carts were not to be had … and therefore, seeing that his majesty had heretofore shown an inclination to go to Aragon, he now advised him to do so ' (ib.; Impartial Enquiry,p. 181).

This letter reached Charles when already on the way to Valencia, the route almost forced upon him by Peterborough. Although naturally indignant, he turned aside towards Aragon, but he declined to retrace his steps, when, in consequence of a sharp letter from Stanhope, Peterborough again wrote to him bidding him make for Valencia (, xxv. 45). Peterborough meanwhile wrote `volumes' to the ministers at home, and afterwards published his complaints of the laziness and arrogance of the king.

While the king and the commander-in-chief were on these terms, the Castilians revolted against Galway and the Portuguese. Charles and his council, perceiving the situation to be extremely critical, wrote to Peterborough desiring him to hurry forward with every available man. There were in Valencia some five or six thousand regulars, but without organised transport they were useless. Peterborough started at once with four hundred dragoons, with which he joined the king on 24 July at Pastrana, and two days later escorted him into the camp of the allies at Guadalajara. The army, then some fifteen thousand strong, was opposed to the Duke of Berwick with nearly double the number. Peterborough's arrival, from which much had been expected, brought no increase of strength, and was, in itself, the signal for discord. There was 'a superfluity of generals' (, ii. 46), and though Galway, still suffering from the loss of his arm, expressed his willingness, or indeed his wish, to resign in favour of Peterborough, his Portuguese colleague, Las Minas, would not agree, and the Dutch general preferred to be independent. Both Galway and Las Minas had reason to be dissatisfied with Peterborough, who, on learning, it seems clear, that they were at Madrid, had remained at Valencia, idly indulging his love of pleasure (Impartial Enquiry, p. 209; Parl. Hist. vi. 987).

Amid these personal recriminations Peterborough, at a council of war on 29 July, announced `that he had orders from the queen to go to Italy,' and his colleagues were `as well content to be rid of him as he was to go ' (Godolphin to Marlborough, 30 Sept. in, Life of Marlborough, i. 471). Two days afterwards he started for Valencia with an escort of eighty dragoons. At Huete he learned that all his baggage, horses, and equipage, on their way up to the camp, had been taken by the enemy, leaving him, he wrote to Stanhope, with only one suit of clothes and six shirts. The value of the loss, which included `eight waggons of good eatables and drink,' he estimated at 6,000l, but his accounts, whether public or private, were always largely imaginary. Towards the middle of August he went to Alicante, presumably to confer with Leake. The town had been taken by storm on 28 July, and with the reduction of the castle, which did not surrender till 17 Sept., Peterborough had nothing immediately to do.

The remainder of July was occupied in forwarding to Stanhope spiteful accusations against Leake and others, charging them with irregularities, which, if they took place, must have been connived at by Peterborough himself. Simultaneously he resolved on an expedition to reduce the Balearic islands, but on receiving orders from England to despatch a squadron of nine ships of the line to the West Indies, he abandoned the expedition, judging that the fleet so reduced would be insufficient for the task, and failing in his efforts to induce Leake or a council of war to undertake the responsibility of disobeying the order from home. On 10 Sept. he sailed in the Resolution for Genoa, in order according to his own account to arrange with the Duke of Savoy for a combined attack on Toulon. The subject was, indeed, spoken of during Peterborough's visit to Turin; but he had no instructions about it, and the claim which he seems to have made to be the originator of the scheme, which was carried out next year, is without foundation. Both the inception, and the maturing of the project were Marlborough's (Impartial Enquiry, p. 238).

The only real business which Peterborough engaged in was the negotiation of a loan of 100,000l. from the Jews of Genoa—a loan which he had no authority to contract, and for which he agreed to pay an exorbitant