Two brigs, two bombards, and a ketch belonging to the convoy, were burnt by the Pomona while Admiral Martin was in chase. The other vessels made for the bay of Rosas; a squadron pursued, and found them moored under the protection of the castle, Fort Trinidad, and several batteries newly erected by the French. Four of these vessels were armed; the largest was of 600 tons, carrying sixteen nine-pounders, and 110 men; she was inclosed in boarding nettings, and perfectly prepared for action. The English boats, however, boarded them all, though they were bravely defended, and though a constant fire was kept up from the forts and from the beach. Of the eleven ships, three had landed their cargoes, but all were taken or burnt; and of the whole convoy there only escaped the frigate, which put into Marseilles, and one of the store-ships, which probably succeeded in reaching Barcelona.
♦Increased distress of the city.♦
It was no unimportant service thus to straiten the French in that city, ... but it was a success which brought no relief to Gerona, where the devoted inhabitants seemed now abandoned to their fate. Hitherto the few mules and horses which remained unslaughtered had been led out to feed near the walls of St. Francisco de Paula, and of the burial ground: ... this was now prevented by the batteries of Palau and Montelivi, and by the French advanced posts; and these wretched animals, being thus deprived of their only food, gnawed the hair from each other’s tails and manes before they were led to the shambles. Famine at length did the enemy’s work; the stores from which the citizens had supplied the failure of the magazines were exhausted; it became necessary to set a guard over the ovens, and the food for the hospitals was sometimes seized upon the way by the famishing populace. The enemy endeavoured to tempt the garrison to desert, by calling out to them to come and eat, and holding out provisions. A few were tempted; they were received with embraces, and fed in sight of the walls, ... poor wretches, envying the firmer constancy of their comrades more than those comrades did the food, for lack of which their own vital spirits were well-nigh spent! None of that individual animosity was here displayed which characterized the street-fighting ♦1809.
November.♦ at Zaragoza, ... the nature of the siege was not such as to call it forth; and some of those humanities appeared, which in other instances the French generals systematically outraged in Spain. The out-sentries frequently made a truce with each other, laid down their arms, and drew near enough to converse; the French soldier would then give his half-starved enemy a draught from his leathern bottle, or brandy flask, and when they had drunk and talked together, they returned to their posts, scoffed at each other, proceeded from mockery to insult, and sometimes closed the scene with a skirmish.
♦Report of the state of health.♦
The only disgraceful circumstance which occurred during the whole siege was the desertion of ten officers in a body, two of whom were men of noble birth; they had been plotting to make the governor capitulate, and finding their intentions frustrated, went over to the enemy in open day. Except in this instance, the number of deserters was very small. Towards the end of November many of the inhabitants, having become utterly hopeless of relief, preferred the chance of death to the certainty of being made prisoners, and they ventured to pass the enemy’s lines, some failing in the attempt, others being more fortunate. At this time Samaniego, who was first surgeon to the garrison, delivered in to Alvarez a report upon the state of ♦Nov. 29.♦ health: as he gave it into his hands, he said something implying the melancholy nature of its contents; Alvarez replied, “this paper then, perhaps, will inform posterity of our sufferings, if there should be none left to recount them!” He then bade Samaniego read it. It was a dreadful report. There did not remain a single building in Gerona which had not been injured by the bombardment; not a house was habitable; the people slept in cellars, and vaults, and holes amid the ruins; and it had not unfrequently happened that the wounded were killed in the hospitals. The streets were broken up; so that the rain water and the sewers stagnated there, and the pestilential vapours which arose were rendered more noxious by the dead bodies which lay rotting amid the ruins. The siege had now endured seven months; scarcely a woman had become pregnant during that time; the very dogs, before hunger consumed them, had ceased to follow after kind; they did not even fawn upon their masters; the almost incessant thunder of artillery seemed to make them sensible of the state of the city, and the unnatural atmosphere affected them as well as humankind. It even affected vegetation. In the gardens within the walls the fruits withered, and scarcely any vegetable could be raised. Within the last three weeks above 500 of the garrison had died in the hospitals; a dysentery was raging and spreading; the sick were lying upon the ground, without beds, almost without food; and there was scarcely fuel to dress the little wheat that remained, and the few horses which were yet unconsumed. Samaniego then adverted with bitterness to the accounts which had been circulated, that abundant supplies had been thrown into the city; and he concluded by saying, “if by these sacrifices, deserving for ever to be the admiration of history, and if by consummating them with the lives of us who, by the will of Providence, have survived our comrades, the liberty of our country can be secured, happy shall we be in the bosom of eternity and in the memory of good men, and happy will our children be among their fellow-countrymen!”
♦Some of the outworks taken by the French.♦
The breaches which had been assaulted ten weeks before were still open; it was easier for the Geronans to defend than to repair them, and the French had suffered too much in that assault to repeat it. A fourth had now been made. The enemy, learning from the officers who had deserted that the ammunition of the place was almost expended, ventured upon bolder operations. They took possession by night of the Calle del Carmen; from thence they commanded the bridge of S. Francisco, which was the only means of communication between the old city and that part on the opposite side of the Ter; from thence also they battered Forts Merced and S. Francisco de Paula. During another night they got possession of Fort Calvary, which they had reduced to ruins, and of the Cabildo redoubt: this last success seems to have been owing to some misconduct, for the historian of the siege inveighs upon this occasion against the pernicious measure of intrusting boys with command, as a reward for the services of their fathers. The city redoubts fell next. The bodily strength as well as the ammunition of the Geronans was almost exhausted, and these advantages over them were gained with comparative ease. The enemy were now close to the walls, and thus cut off the forts of the Capuchins and of the Constable, the only two remaining outworks. The garrisons of both amounted only to 160 men; they had scarcely any powder, little water, and no food. These posts were of the last importance; it was resolved to make a sally for the sake of relieving them, and the garrison of the town gave up for this purpose their own miserable rations, contributing enough for the consumption of three days. The ration was at this time a handful of wheat daily, or sometimes, in its stead, the quarter of a small loaf, and five ounces of horse’s or mule’s flesh, every alternate day.
♦Last sally of the garrison.♦
The few men who could be allotted for this service, or indeed who were equal to it, sallied in broad day through the Puerto del Socorro, within pistol-shot of the redoubts which the enemy now possessed; they were in three bodies, two of which hastened up the hill toward the two forts, while the third remained to protect them from being attacked in the rear from the Calle del Carmen. The sally was so sudden, so utterly unlooked for by the besiegers, and so resolutely executed, that its purpose was accomplished, ♦1809.
December.♦ though not without the loss in killed and wounded of about forty men, which was nearly a third of those who were employed in it. This was the last effort of the Geronans. The deaths increased in a dreadful and daily accelerating progression; the burial-places were without the walls; it had long been a service of danger to bury the dead, for the French, seeing the way to the cemetery always full, kept up a fire upon it; hands could not now be found to carry them out to the deposit-house, and from thence to the grave; and at one time 120 bodies were lying in the deposit-house, uncoffined, in sight of all who passed the walls.
♦Alvarez becomes delirious.♦