Few of the peasantry appeared to receive them on the coast, and these were unarmed and without officers.
The earl's instructions, although generally quite indefinite, were stringent upon one point.

He was on no account to make the slightest alteration in the plans of the expedition, or to take any decisive step for their accomplishment, without the advice of the council of war.

This would have been in any case embarrassing for a general; in the present instance it was calculated altogether to cripple him.

There was but little harmony among the chief officers.

The English military officers were by no means on good terms with each other, while the naval officers regarded almost as an insult Lord Peterborough's being placed in command of them.