“Instead of ten thousand men, and in arms,” he wrote, “to cover our landing and strengthen our camp, we found only so many higglers and sutlers flocking into it.  Instead of finding Barcelona in a weak condition, and ready to surrender upon the first appearance of our troops, we found a strong garrison to oppose us, and a hostile army almost equal to our own.”

In this dilemma a council of war was held, and though many were in favor of abandoning the enterprise and returning to Portugal, it was at last determined, through the urgency of Charles, to remain and lay siege to the city.  Barcelona, the capital of Catalonia, was then the principal sea-port of the Spanish peninsula on the Mediterranean.  It contained a population of about one hundred and forty thousand.  It was strongly fortified.  West of the city there was a mountain called Montjoy, upon which there was a strong fort which commanded the harbor and the town.  After a short siege this fort was taken by storm, and the city was then forced to surrender.

Philip soon advanced with an army of French and Spaniards to retake the city.  The English fleet had retired.  Twenty-eight French ships of war blockaded the harbor, which they could not enter, as it was commanded by the guns of Montjoy.  The siege was very desperate both in the assault and the defense.  The young king, Charles, was in the most imminent danger of falling into the bands of his foes.  There was no possibility of escape, and it seemed inevitable that the city must either surrender, or be taken by storm.  The French and Spanish army numbered twenty thousand men.  They first attempted to storm Montjoy, but were repulsed with great slaughter.  They then besieged it, and by regular approaches compelled its capitulation in three weeks.

This noble resistance enabled the troops in the city greatly to multiply and increase their defenses.  They thus succeeded in protracting the siege of the town five weeks longer.  Every day the beleagured troops from the crumbling ramparts watched the blue expanse of the Mediterranean, hoping to see the sails of an English fleet coming to their rescue.  Two breaches were already effected in the walls.  The garrison, reduced to two thousand, and exhausted by superhuman exertions by day and by night, were almost in the last stages of despair, when, in the distant horizon, the long looked-for fleet appeared.  The French ships, by no means able to cope with such a force, spread their sails, and sought safety in flight.

The English fleet, amounting to fifty sail of the line, and transporting a large number of land troops, triumphantly entered the harbor on the 3rd of May, 1708.  The fresh soldiers were speedily landed, and marched to the ramparts and the breaches.  This strong reinforcement annihilated the hopes of the besiegers.  Apprehensive of an immediate sally, they retreated with such precipitation that they left behind them in the hospitals their sick and wounded; they also abandoned their heavy artillery, and an immense quantity of military stores.