This determination was caused by a fresh alarm from the eastward. Maurice Mathieu, hearing the siege was raised, and the allies had re-landed at the Col de Balaguer, retraced his steps and boldly entered Cambrills the 17th, on which day, Mackenzie having returned, Murray’s whole army was concentrated in the pass. Suchet was then behind Perillo, and as Copons was at Reus, by Murray’s desire, to attack Maurice Mathieu, the latter was in danger, if the English general had been capable of a vigorous stroke. On the other hand Suchet, too anxious for Valencia, had disregarded Mackenzie’s movement on Valdillos, and taught by the disembarkation of the army at San Felippe that the fate of Tarragona, for good or evil, was decided, had on the 16th retired to Perillo and Amposta, attentive only to the movement of the fleet.
Meanwhile Maurice Mathieu endeavoured to surprise Copons, who was led into this danger by Murray; for having desired him to harass the French general’s rear with a view to a general attack, he changed his plan without giving the Spaniard notice. However he escaped, and Murray was free to embark or remain at Col de Balaguer. He called a council of war, and it was concluded to re-embark; but at that moment the great Mediterranean fleet appeared in the offing, and Admiral Hallowel, observing the signal announcing Lord William Bentinck’s arrival, answered with more promptitude than decorum, “we are all delighted.” Thus ended an operation perhaps the most disgraceful that ever befel the British arms.
Murray’s misconduct deeply affected Lord Wellington’s operations. The English battering train being taken, Suchet had nothing to fear for Catalonia, which was full of fortresses, and he could therefore move by Zaragoza to disturb the siege of Pampeluna, which was consequently relinquished for a blockade, and the siege of San Sebastian undertaken. This involved the adoption of an immense line of covering positions along the Pyrenees from Roncesvalles to the Bidassoa, and along the left hank of that river to the sea; and the siege, itself a difficult one, was rendered more so by the culpable negligence of the English naval administration.
Passages, the only port near the scene of operations suited for the supply of the army, being between the covering and besieging forces, the stores and guns once landed were in danger from every movement of the enemy; and no permanent magazines could therefore be established nearer than Bilbao, at which port and at St. Ander and Coruña the great depôts of the army were fixed; the stores being transported to them from the establishments in Portugal. But the French held Santoña, whence their privateers interrupted the communication along the coast of Spain; American privateers did the same between Lisbon and Coruña; and the intercourse between Sebastian and the ports of France was scarcely molested by the English vessels of war: because Wellington’s urgent remonstrances could not procure a sufficient naval force on the coast of Biscay!
Siege of San Sebastian. (June, 1813.)
Built on a low sandy isthmus, having the harbour on one side, the river Urumea on the other, Sebastian was strong; and behind it rose the Monte Orgullo, a rugged cone four hundred feet high, washed by the ocean and crowned with the small castle of La Mota. This hill was cut off from the town by a line of defensive works, and covered with batteries; but was itself commanded at a distance of thirteen hundred yards by the Monte Olia, on the other side of the Urumea.
The land front of the town, three hundred and fifty yards wide, stretching quite across the isthmus, consisted of a high curtain or rampart, very solid, with half bastions at either end and a lofty casemated flat bastion or cavalier in the centre. A regular horn-work was pushed out from this front, and six hundred yards beyond the horn-work the isthmus was closed by the ridge of San Bartolomeo, at the foot of which stood the suburb of San Martin.
On the opposite side of the Urumea were certain sandy hills called the Chofres, through which the road from Passages passed to a wooden bridge over the river, and thence, by a suburb called Santa Catalina, along the top of a sea-wall which formed a fausse-braye for the horn-work.
The flanks of the town were protected by simple ramparts, washed on one side by the water of the harbour, on the other by the Urumea, which at high tide covered four of the twenty-seven feet comprised in its elevation. This was the weak side of the fortress, though protected by the river; for it had only a single wall, which was ill-flanked by two old towers and a half-bastion called San Elmo, close under the Monte Orgullo. There was no ditch, no counterscarp, no glacis; the wall could be seen to its base from the Chofre hills, at distances varying from five hundred to a thousand yards; and when the tide was out the Urumea left a dry strand under the rampart as far as St. Elmo. However the guns from the batteries at Monte Orgullo, especially that called the Mirador, could rake this strand. The other flank of the town was secured by the harbour, in the mouth of which was a rocky island, called Santa Clara, where the French had established a post of twenty-five men.
Previous to the battle of Vittoria Sebastian was nearly dismantled; there were no bomb-proofs, no palisades, no outworks; the wells were foul, the place only supplied with water by an aqueduct. Joseph’s defeat restored its importance as a fortress. General Emanuel Bey entered it the 22nd of June, bringing with him the convoy which had quitted Vittoria the day before the battle. The town was thus filled with emigrant Spanish families, and the ministers and other persons attached to the court; the population, ordinarily eight thousand, was increased to sixteen thousand, and disorder and confusion were predominant. Rey, pushed by necessity, forced all persons not residents to march at once to France; the people of quality went by sea, the others by land, and fortunately without being attacked, for the Partidas would have given them no quarter.