The Governor, however, D. Pedro O’Daly, Lieutenant-Colonel of the regiment of Ulster, as soon as he apprehended an attack had made some preparations; he ordered all strangers who had taken refuge there to depart, and sent away by sea such of the garrison as were incapable of service. The ditches were cleared, parapets formed, and guns mounted. The north angle of the fort had been demolished by the explosion of a magazine; a wall of stones without mortar was run up by the peasants; it closed the breach, but that part of the works remained useless. The stores were as incomplete as the works: there were neither measures for the powder, nor saws for the fusees, ... hats and axes were used instead. The buildings within the fort were in ruins, an old church and one other edifice being all that were serviceable. Before the former siege a line nearly half a mile in length, with some redoubts, had been formed from the citadel to that part of the mountain range which is called Puig-rom, for the purpose of covering the town; but it was now in all parts so dilapidated, that though the garrison as well as the inhabitants were aware how much they needed this additional ♦Cabañes, c. 10.♦ protection, any attempt at re-establishing it was deemed hopeless.
♦Preparations for the siege.♦
Preparations for the siege had been made at Figueras, and in order to deceive the Spaniards a report had been encouraged that the design was against Gerona. St. Cyr established his head-quarters at Figueras, and General Reille, to whom the conduct of the siege had been entrusted, encamped before Rosas with his own division and that of the Italian General Pino. General ♦Nov. 6.♦ Souham took a position between Figueras and the Fluvia, to protect the besiegers on that side against any attempt which might be made from Gerona; and Chabot was stationed nearer the frontier, the General being well aware that the opposition which he had to apprehend was not so much from regular troops as from the whole population of the country. But the measures of the Catalans were so ill-directed at this time, that the invaders suffered more from the weather, and from the gross neglect of their own government in sending them supplies, than from all the efforts of their enemies. St. Cyr was obliged to send his cavalry back into France to the neighbourhood of Beziers, that the horses might not perish for want of fodder during the siege; and when he wrote pressingly for supplies for his men, directions were sent him in return to collect and convoy provisions to Barcelona. He ♦St. Cyr, 34–41♦ was desired not to regard any reports concerning the rabble opposed to him, for it was nothing more, and the time was fixed within which the Emperor expected that he would be master of Barcelona and of the country ten leagues round. In reply to this he stated that he would not break up the siege of Rosas without positive orders; that it was sufficiently hazardous to advance leaving Gerona behind him; but if Rosas were left also, Figueras would be again blockaded by the Spaniards, and must fall, because it was not possible to store it: so that the ♦Do. Pièces Justif. 45–16.♦ only way to secure that most important fortress was to take Rosas.
♦British squadron in the Bay of Rosas.♦
However much St. Cyr and the government under which he acted differed in other points, they both knew the incapacity of the forces opposed to them, and relied upon it. They knew that there would be no difficulty in routing the Spaniards whenever they were brought to action, that nothing was to be apprehended from any combined operations, and that neither by sea or land was any such exertion as the time required to be expected from the English, ... the siege of Rosas would otherwise have been a more perilous undertaking than the march to Barcelona. The English had just force enough in the Bay to give the French an opportunity of boasting that the siege was effected in spite of them, and to show what might have been done if a flying squadron with troops on board had been on the coast ready to act wherever it might be most serviceable. Captain West was in the bay in the Excellent, with the Lucifer and Meteor, bomb-vessels; and when the enemy, having taken possession of the heights which encompass the whole bay, had driven the troops in, and the peasants from the nearest villages with them, and entered the town, these vessels bore a part in the action, and assisted in dislodging them. Five-and-twenty marines were then sent to reinforce Fort Trinidad, and the rest of the marines, with fifty seamen, went cheerfully to assist in defending the citadel. Upon this a report was spread by the enemy, who were always endeavouring to make the Spaniards jealous of their allies, that the English had taken possession of the place; and as while this report was circulated they succeeded in intercepting all communications from Rosas to Gerona, the Junta of that city wrote to Captain West, requesting an explanation of his conduct. The artifice was then discovered; but not till the end had been answered of deceiving the Junta for a time, and thus preventing them from taking such measures for the relief of the place as might have been in their power.
Reille had expected to take Rosas by a sudden attack. The commandant of the engineers had served in that same capacity at the last siege, and was therefore well acquainted with the place and with its weakness. On the evening of the 9th a breach was made in the ramparts of the citadel sufficient for twenty men abreast; but it was so dark that the enemy did not discover the extent of the mischief. Immediate intelligence was sent to the ships; one of the bomb-vessels was then stationed where it could flank the breach, and the boats appointed to enfilade the shore with carronades, while more seamen were landed to repair the damage. British seamen are made of such materials, that it is indifferent to them on what service they are employed; whether at sea or ashore, whatever is to be done by courage, activity, intelligence, and strenuous exertion, they can accomplish. The Spaniards exerted themselves with emulous alacrity, and this, against which the enemy had directed their fire as the weakest part of the works, was by their united labour placed in a respectable state of defence.
♦Disposition of the Italian troops to desert.♦
Reille now found that neglected as Rosas had been, with its feeble works, its unsupported garrison, and its insufficient stores, it was necessary to proceed against it by regular siege. Some difficulties he encountered from the state of the weather, some from the sallies which were made to interrupt him; but his greatest uneasiness arose from the desertion of the Italians, which was so frequent as to leave no doubt that in case ♦St. Cyr, 38.♦ of any serious reverse the whole division would go over to the Spaniards. The state of durance in which the Pope was held had probably offended their religious feelings, and the Tuscans perhaps in their indignation for the treatment of the Queen of Etruria felt some sympathy with the Spaniards. But Buonaparte cared not for the hearts of men, so their hands were at his service and their lives at his disposal. And such are the effects of discipline, that the Italians, who when left to themselves are the worst troops in the world, became as efficient as the best soldiers in his army. One regiment at this siege was composed of subjects turned out from others, the refuse of the whole Italian army: example, encouragement, and restraint, made them behave well in the field, ... and how they behaved out of it was a matter of indifference to their officers and the government which employed them. Two companies of Italians having been surrounded and made prisoners by the Somatenes, under an old man of seventy, (who had been a captain of Miquelets in the last war, and now acted under the orders of the Spanish commander, D. Juan Claros), St. Cyr gave orders to seize an equal number of the inhabitants, and send them into France; there to be confined till an exchange should take place; and this he did to give a humaner character to the war, upon so brutal a system had it been carried on by his predecessors. His plea was that the peasantry had entrapped his troops by leading them astray; but the Catalans did not understand upon what principle he acted, and were more exasperated than if he had pursued the old system of burning their villages, because they believed that their countrymen were thus carried off as recruits for Buonaparte’s armies in the north. Among the Italian prisoners was the wife of an officer who accompanied her husband in man’s attire.
♦Attack upon Fort Trinidad repulsed.♦
On the 16th the French attempted to carry Fort Trinidad by assault. They were repulsed; returning in greater strength, they forced the outer gate, and endeavoured to force the second; but here such a steady fire of musquetry and hand-grenades was kept up against them, that they retired a second time, leaving many of their men under the walls. Captain West expecting a third attack, reinforced the fort with a party of marines, who entered by means of a rope-ladder under an incessant fire. Nothing could be more cordial than the co-operation of the Spaniards and English at this time; but they were not strong enough to prevent the enemy from erecting batteries, which compelled the ships to keep at a distance, and a brave but unsuccessful attack from Gerona upon Souham’s division on the Fluvia was the only effort made to relieve them: on that side the Spaniards would have done more had it not been for want of cavalry. There were two regiments in Tarragona with excellent horses, but so miserably in want of equipments, that it was impossible for them to take the field; there was no money to equip them, and while they were thus remaining inactive the enemy were overrunning the Ampurdan, and carrying on the siege of Rosas at their will, because the Spaniards had no cavalry to keep them in check. The French acted with a full knowledge of the Spaniards’ embarrassments, and in full reliance upon the paralysing imbecility which such difficulties must needs produce; nevertheless St. Cyr was far from feeling at ease, knowing that Barcelona must fall unless it were speedily succoured, and that if the force which was now idly besieging it were brought to the relief of Rosas, Catalonia might speedily be cleared of its invaders, and Rousillon become in its turn the scene of invasion. It was therefore necessary to press the siege, the farthest day which had been appointed for his reaching ♦The French establish themselves in the town.♦ Barcelona being past. During the night of the 27th an attack was made upon the town; the helpless part of the inhabitants had been removed by sea at the first approach of danger; there were about 500 men stationed there, some of whom were peasants, the others part of the garrison: they defended themselves with a courage to which the French, who are seldom just to their enemies, bore witness; but they were overpowered; about 300 fell, and hardly fifty escaped into the citadel. The conquerors immediately established batteries under cover of the houses, then set fire to the houses, and cut off the communication between the citadel and the fort. They rendered it also impossible for the English to communicate with the citadel. Captain West had at this time been superseded by Captain Bennett of the Fame; and when an officer from the Marques de Lazan came on board his ship with dispatches for the governor, some lives were lost in an unsuccessful attempt at landing him.