BOOK X.
Battle of Castalla—English Siege of Taragona—Siege of San Sebastian—Storming of San Bartolomeo—First Storm of San Sebastian.
While the main armies strove in the north of Spain, the Mediterranean coast was the scene of a secondary contest maintained by an English expedition sent from Sicily in 1812. Destined at first for Catalonia, it finally landed at Alicant, where it remained inactive until April, 1813, but then Sir John Murray, whose want of vigour on the Douro was overbalanced by aristocratic influence at home, assumed command. Acting in conjunction with the Spanish general Elio, he commenced a series of petty enterprises, and broached several projects which he had not nerve to execute, and only roused Suchet to serious action. That marshal, previously inert, concentrated in the night of the 11th all his disposable force, and next morning falling upon Mijares, Elio’s lieutenant, defeated him with a loss of fifteen hundred prisoners. Then he marched against Murray, who retreated through the pass of Biar to a position of battle, leaving Colonel F. Adam with two thousand five hundred men and six guns in the defile. The ground was very strong, but the French light troops crowned the rocks on each side and after two hours’ fighting the allies abandoned the pass, with a loss of two guns and some prisoners besides killed and wounded, yet made their retreat, three miles, to the main position, in good order, and were not pursued.
This double success in one day indicated the approach of a decisive battle, in anticipation of which Murray had studied and chosen his ground with judgment. His left, composed of Whittingham’s Spanish division, was intrenched on a rugged sierra, and the troops coming from Biar prolonged the line on a front of two miles, until the ridge ended abruptly over the town of Castalla. That place with its old castle, crowning an isolated sugar-loaf hill, was prepared for defence, having all the approaches commanded by batteries, and being strongly occupied with Mackenzie’s British division. The cavalry was disposed on a plain, partly in front, partly behind the town. Clinton’s English and Roche’s Spanish divisions were in reserve in rear of the right, on a lower height nearly perpendicular to the main front; and their line as well as the town was covered by the dry bed of a torrent called a baranco, having precipitous sides and in many places a hundred feet in depth: that front was therefore refused and scarcely attackable.
On the 12th Suchet’s cavalry, issuing cautiously from the defile of Biar, extended to its left on the plain; the infantry, following, took possession of a low ridge facing the Sierra, and then the cavalry, passing the baranco, turned the town as if to menace the divisions in reserve. This movement alarmed Murray, and notwithstanding the impregnable strength of his ground he shrunk from the encounter; even while Suchet was advancing he thrice gave orders to the quartermaster general Donkin to put the army in retreat; the last time so peremptorily, that obedience must have followed if at that moment the French light troops in advance had not commenced firing.