The 17th June was a day as full of ridiculous cross-purposes as the 12th. Suchet’s main body was in full march for Amposta and the road to Valencia[715], just as Maurice Mathieu was at last coming to look for it. Murray in the centre was expecting to be attacked on both sides of the Col de Balaguer, believing that the reckless advance of the Barcelona column was timed to coincide with a desperate assault on the Col by Suchet and his whole army. Mathieu was advancing in ignorance into a death-trap, if he had only known it, expecting every moment to hear guns in his front, or to get news of Suchet by spies or patrols. Copons was hanging back on Mathieu’s flank, deterred from pressing in by Murray’s ridiculous overstatement of the total French force. If Murray had marched from the Col that morning early with 10,000 men and had met the French column at Cambrils, while the Catalans closed in on its rear, no possible chance could have saved it from complete destruction.
But Murray was doing something very different; after having made his urgent appeal to Copons to take part in a general action on the 17th, it occurred to him that a general action might perhaps be avoided by the simple method of absconding once more by sea—and again leaving the Catalans to shift for themselves. Mackenzie was back from Valdellos, and the whole force was concentrated in the pass, with the immense transport fleet at its elbow, and several decent embarkation places. In the morning he called a council of war—which, as the old military proverb goes, ‘never fights’—though he had assured Admiral Hallowell on the preceding night that he had chosen his positions, and intended to stand and receive the enemy’s attack[716]. The council of war voted, by a large majority, for embarkation—probably as has been acutely observed[717], because none of the generals liked the idea of being commanded in action by Murray, after their recent experience of his methods. The preparations for departure were begun on the afternoon of the 17th, but no notice of them was sent to Copons.
Meanwhile Maurice Mathieu had halted at Cambrils: he could get no news of Suchet, and no firing could be heard in front. On the other hand, British warships ran close in-shore, and began to cannonade his column, as it defiled along the coast-road. And his cavalry patrols discovered those of Copons in front of Reus, and afterwards got in touch with the Spanish infantry behind them. The situation was getting unpleasant; and realizing that he had better draw back, Mathieu turned the head of his column inland to Reus, for he was determined not to expose it a second time to the fire of the British ships, which swept the coast-road at many points. Marching in the night of the 17th-18th he almost surprised Copons, who had brought his infantry up to Reus in order to fall in with Murray’s plan for attacking the enemy in flank. But the Spaniard was warned in time, and escaped to La Selva, from whence he wrote to Murray, to complain that the British had not kept their part of the bargain, nor even sent him news of Mathieu’s retirement from their front.
At Reus the French General picked up the spy to whom Suchet had entrusted his despairing note of June 15, which avowed his impotence and asked what the Army of Catalonia could do[718]. Seeing that he must hope for no help from the Marshal, Mathieu retreated by the inland road to Constanti, two miles from Tarragona (June 18), where he halted for a day, after sending on Suchet’s letter to his chief Decaen, and renewing his former petitions that the reserves from the North should get to Barcelona as soon as possible. It was clear that the Army of Catalonia must save itself, without any aid from the Army of Valencia.
While Maurice Mathieu stood doubting at Cambrils, and all through the night hours while he was marching on Reus, there had been a rapid shifting of scenes at the Col de Balaguer. Murray’s orders for re-embarkation were just drawn up when a formidable fleet of men-of-war became visible on the horizon, and presently ran close in-shore. This was Sir Edward Pellew with the Toulon blockading squadron, twelve line of battle ships, besides smaller craft. They had run down from the Bay of Rosas, after picking up at Port Mahon a vessel from Sicily, on which was Lord William Bentinck, who had at last arrived to assume command of the Anglo-Sicilian army. He had torn himself away with some reluctance from his plans for raising a general insurrection in Italy against Napoleon, having satisfied himself that there was no risk of Murat’s invading Sicily in his absence, and that the local politics of Palermo were deplorable but not dangerous[719]. When the signal was made from Pellew’s flagship that Lord William had arrived, Admiral Hallowell answered with the counter-signal, ‘We are all delighted,’ which was sincere and accurate, but not officially correct. It was remembered against him afterwards, as an improper ebullition of misplaced humour.
Bentinck landed at San Felipe without a moment’s delay, took over the command from Murray, and heard his report. He also talked with Hallowell and the senior land-officers. He made up his mind very promptly: the embarkation which had begun was to continue, and the Army was to be taken back to Valencia at once, in strict consonance with Wellington’s original orders. He explained in his next dispatch home that he was aware that he might have chased Maurice Mathieu, and probably have compelled him to throw himself into Tarragona. But he conceived that a second siege of that fortress would take many days, and would not be so profitable to the general cause as an unexpected return to Valencia to join Del Parque and Elio. The Army, as he wrote to Wellington, was in the best spirits, but most dissatisfied as to what had happened before Tarragona, ‘concerning which, from motives of delicacy, he would refrain from saying anything[720].’ But there had been much material lost, the horses and mules were in a bad way, from having been so often landed and reshipped, and it was better to return to Alicante and reorganize everything than to start another Catalan campaign.
The troops were got on board very rapidly, and the whole transport fleet set sail southward on the 18th. The fort of San Felipe was blown up, as Bentinck was not willing to leave any troops behind to garrison it. Unfortunately, the good weather which had been granted to Murray at the starting of the expedition was denied to Bentinck during its return. A furious north-east wind was blowing, which scattered the ships, and drove no less than fourteen of them ashore on the projecting sands at the estuary of the Ebro. Ten were got off when the storm moderated, but four had to be burned, after the crews and troops had been taken off. Bentinck, after four days at sea, got into Alicante on the 22nd June, ahead of the great majority of the transports, which continued to drop in, some much disabled, for three or four days after. This caused a tiresome delay in the reorganization of the army, as odd companies of every regiment were missing, and the units could not be re-formed and marched inland for some time. The delay gave Bentinck time to write long dispatches to the Secretary for War and to Wellington. These went off on the 23rd by special messenger, and along with them lengthy screeds from Murray and Admiral Hallowell. The two officers wrote most bitterly of each other to the Commander-in-Chief—the Admiral detailing all the General’s hesitations and tergiversations with caustic irony, while the General wrote that ‘if I had only allowed the Admiral to command the army you would never have been troubled with the long letter which accompanies this.... He thinks that prejudice against him led me to act as I did. These are the real grounds of all his outcry[721].’ Murray’s long dispatch was not only very disingenuous in suppression of facts, but so vague concerning all necessary dates and figures, that Wellington, when it came to hand, showed profound dissatisfaction. He observed that it ‘left him entirely ignorant of what had occurred,’ and administered a searching interrogatory of eleven questions, answers to which were necessary before a judgement could be formed by himself or the Home Government on what had really happened in Catalonia[722]. Murray’s replies were as unconvincing as his original dispatches, and the matter ended in a long-deferred and lengthy court martial at Winchester in 1814, after the war had come to an end. To describe it here would interrupt unseasonably the narrative of the summer campaign of 1813. But it may suffice to say that he did not get his deserts. He was only convicted of an error of judgement, and not of the ‘disobedience to orders and neglect of duty, highly to the prejudice of the service, and detrimental to the British military character’ for which he was put on trial. He was never even indicted for his worst offence—the callous betrayal of the Spanish colleague who had done his best to serve him.
SECTION XXXVII: CHAPTER IV
WELLINGTON ON THE BIDASSOA
On July 1st the last of Foy’s troops on the sea-coast front had recrossed the lower Bidassoa, leaving Graham and Giron in complete possession of the Spanish bank, and free to commence the siege of St. Sebastian. They had 25,000 men in line, without counting Mendizabal’s Biscayan irregulars, who were observing the fortress, and the 5th British Division, which was now on its march from Vittoria to the frontier, and was due to arrive on the 5th or 6th. These forces were amply sufficient to hold in check Reille, Foy, and the Bayonne Reserve.