On the 1st of September the mortar-batteries commenced throwing shells;[250] and as the castle was indifferently provided with bomb-proof casemates, a considerable loss induced the governor[251] to offer a capitulation, but the terms were not such as could be granted. Batteries with heavy ordnance were erected on the works of the town, and on the 8th opened with such terrible effect, that in two hours the place was unconditionally surrendered.[252] The garrison amounted to eighteen hundred men, of whom nearly a third were disabled.[253]
San Sebastian was held to the last with excellent judgment and dauntless gallantry. Indeed, the loss of the besiegers bore melancholy confirmation of the fact,—for the reduction of that fortress cost the allies nearly four thousand men.
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Before we record the triumphant entrance into the French territory by the allied troops, it may be necessary to casually notice the proceedings of the Anglo-Sicilian army in the east of Spain.
Lord Wellington had arranged, as a part of the military operations of the brilliant campaign of 1813, the liberation of Valencia, by forcing Suchet from that province, and obliging him to abandon afterwards the line of the Lower Ebro. This was perfectly practicable. The Spanish commanders were in force in Catalonia,—Del Parque in Murcia and Grenada,—the coast was open to the English shipping—and Sir John Murray could embark at Alicant, and land his army on any part of Catalonia that he pleased.
In pursuance of this plan, Sir John Murray appeared before Tarragona on the 2nd of June, landed next morning, and invested the place. His opening operations were successful. Fort Balaguer, after a day’s bombardment, surrendered; and the French were confined to the possession of the inner defences of the town.
The siege was proceeding with every promise of a successful result, when Murray, learning that Suchet was advancing from Valencia, and Mathieu from Barcelona, raised it with such unnecessary precipitation, that nineteen battering guns were abandoned in the trenches, and the infantry and cavalry reimbarked with an ill-judged haste, that at the time not only produced considerable dissatisfaction among the troops, but afterwards subjected Sir John Murray to a court-martial. That it was a most uncalled for proceeding on the part of the English general was subsequently ascertained,—for, and at the same moment, Murray, Suchet, and Mathieu were actually retiring from each other.[254] Murray suspected that he should be exposed to a combined attack—Mathieu dared not venture singly on the English—and Suchet, having left his artillery at Tortosa, feared to attack while unprovided with that most essential arm.
Lord William Bentinck’s subsequent attempt on Tarragona, when Suchet retreated from the Ebro into Catalonia, was equally unsuccessful. Having moved from Villa Franca and advanced across to Ordal, on the night of the 12th of September, he was furiously attacked, and driven back on the main body, with a loss of four guns, and a thousand men hors de combat. The British retreated, pursued by Suchet and Decaen; and, after an affair between the Brunswick hussars and a French cuirassier regiment, highly creditable to the former, the English returned to Tarragona, and the French to their cantonments on the Llobregat. Lord William resigned the command to General Clinton, and resumed that which he had previously held in Sicily.