or wine, that were
tolerable. I paid a guinea a day at the _Fontain d'Or_ for my table;
yet every thing was so dirty, that I always made my dinner from the
dessert; nor was there any other place but the stable of this dirty inn
to put up my horse, where I paid twelve livres a week for straw only;
and whoever lodges at this inn, must pay five shillings a day for their
dinner, whether they dine there or not.

_Catalonia_ is undoubtedly the best cultivated, the richest, and most
industrious province, or principality, in Spain; and the King, who has
the SUN FOR HIS HAT, (for it always shines in some part of his
dominions) has nothing to boast of, equal to _Catalonia_.

As I have almost as much abhorrence to the Moors, as even the Spaniards
themselves, (having visited that coast two or three times, many years
ago) you may be sure I was grieved to meet, every time I went out, so
many maimed and wounded officers and soldiers, who were not long
returned from the unsuccessful expedition to _Algiers_. There are no
troops in the world more steady than the Spaniards; it was not for want
of bravery they miscarried, but there was some sad mismanagement; and
had the Moors followed their blows, not a man of them would have
returned. My servant, (a French deserter) who was upon that expedition,
says, Gen. O'Reilly was the first who landed, and the last who
embarked;--but it is the HEAD, not the _arm_ of a commander in chief,
which is most wanted. The Moors at _le point du jour_, advanced upon
the Spaniards behind a formidable _masked and moving battery_ of
camels: the Spaniards, believing them, by a faint light, to be cavalry,
expended a great part of their strength, spirits, and ammunition, upon
those harmless animals; and it was not till _this curtain_ was removed
that the dreadful carnage began, in which they lost about nine thousand
men. There seems to have been some strange mismanagement; it seems
probable that there was no very good understanding between the marine
and the land officers. The fleet were many days before the town, and
then landed just where the Moors expected they would land. There is
nothing so difficult, so dangerous, nor so liable to miscarriage, as
the war of _invading_: our troops experienced it at _St. Cas_; and they
either have, or will experience it in America. The wild negroes in
Jamaica, to whom Gov. Trelawney wisely gave, what they contended for,
(LIBERTY) were not above fifteen hundred fit to bear arms