At four o’clock in the morning of the 8th, the French column, jumping out of the trenches, rapidly cleared the space between them and the fort, descended the ditch, and mounted to the assault with great resolution; but the Spaniards had so strengthened the defences that no impression could be made, and the assailants taken in flank and rear by the fire from the half moon, the covered way, and the eastern bastion, were driven back. Twice they renewed the attempt, but the obstacles were insurmountable, and the assault failed, with a loss of a thousand men killed and wounded. The success of the besieged was however mitigated by an accidental explosion, which destroyed the garrison of the small fort of St. Juan, situated between Monjouic and the city.
About the period of this assault which was given without St. Cyr’s knowledge, the latter finding that Claros and Rovira interrupted the convoys coming from Figueras to Gerona, withdrew a brigade of Souham’s division from Santa Coloma de Farnés, and posted it on the left of the Ter, at Bañolas. The troops on the side of Hostalrich were thus reduced to about eight thousand men under arms, although an effort to raise the siege was to be expected. For letters from Alvarez, urgently demanding succours of Blake, had been intercepted, and the latter, after his defeat in Aragon, was, as I have said, collecting men at Taragona.
Meanwhile, to secure the coast-line from Rosas to Quixols before Blake could reach the scene of action, St. Cyr resolved to take Palamos. To effect this, general Fontanes marched from St. Filieu, on the 5th of July, with an Italian brigade, six guns, and some squadrons of dragoons. Twice he summoned the place, and the bearer being each time treated with scorn, the troops moved on to the attack; but in passing a flat part of the coast near Torre Valenti, they were cannonaded by six gun-boats so sharply, that they could not keep the road until the artillery had obliged the boats to sheer off.
STORMING OF PALAMOS.
This town having a good roadstead, and being only one march from Gerona, was necessarily a place of importance; and the works, although partly ruined, were so far repaired by the Catalans as to be capable of some defence. Twenty guns were mounted; and the town, built on a narrow rocky peninsula had but one front, the approach to which was over an open plain, completely commanded from the left by some very rugged hills, where a considerable number of Somatenes were assembled, with their line touching upon the walls of the town.
Fontanes drove the Somatenes from this position, and a third time, summoned the place to surrender. The bearer was killed, and the Italians immediately stormed the works. When the Spaniards flying towards the shore endeavoured to get on board their vessels, the latter put off to sea, and some of Fontanes’ troops having turned the town during the action, intercepted the fugitives, and put all to the sword.
Scarcely had Palamos fallen when Wimphen and the Milans, arriving near Hostalrich, began to harass Souham’s outposts at Santa Coloma, hoping to draw St. Cyr’s attention to that side, while a reinforcement for the garrison of Gerona should pass through the left of his line into the city. The French general was not deceived; but the Spaniards nevertheless sent fifteen hundred chosen men, under the command of one Marshal, an Englishman, to penetrate secretly through the enemy’s posts at Llagostera. They were accompanied by an aide-de-camp of Alvarez, called Rich, apparently an Englishmen also, and they succeeded on the 9th in passing general Pino’s posts unobserved. A straggler, however, was taken, and St. Cyr being thus informed of the march, and judging that the attempt to break the line of investment would be made in the night and by the road of Casa de Selva, immediately placed one body of men in ambush near that point, and sent another in pursuit of the succouring column.
As the French general had foreseen, the Spaniards continued their march through the hills at dusk, but being suddenly fired upon by the ambuscade, hastily retired, and the next day fell in with the other troops, when a thousand men were made prisoners: the rest dispersing, escaped the enemy, yet were ill used and robbed of their arms by the Somatenes. St. Cyr says that Mr. Marshal, having offered to capitulate, fled during the negotiation, and thus abandoned his men; but the Spanish general Conpigny affirmed that the men abandoned Marshal, and refused to fight, that Rich ran away before he had seen the enemy, and that both he and the troops merited severe punishment. It is also certain that Marshal’s flight was to Gerona, where he afterwards fell fighting gallantly.
This disappointment was sensibly felt by Alvarez. Sickness and battle had already reduced his garrison to fifteen hundred men, and he was thus debarred of the best of all defences, namely, frequent sallies as the enemy neared the walls. His resolution was unshaken, but he did not fail to remonstrate warmly with Conpigny, and even denounced his inactivity to the Supreme Junta. That general excused himself on the ground of Blake’s absence, the want of provisions, and the danger of carrying the contagious sickness of Taragona into Gerona; and finally adduced colonel Marshal’s unfortunate attempt, as proof that due exertion had been made. Yet he could not deny that Gerona had been invested two months, had sustained forty days of open trenches, a bombardment and an assault without any succour, and that during that time, he himself remained at Taragona, instead of being at Hostalrich with all the troops he could collect.
From the prisoners taken the French ascertained that neither Conpigny nor Blake had any intention of coming to the relief of Gerona, until sickness and famine, which pressed as heavily on the besiegers as on the besieged, should have weakened the ranks of the former; and this plan receives unqualified praise from St. Cyr, who seems to have forgotten, that with an open breach, a town, requiring six thousand men to man the works, and having but fifteen hundred, might fall at any moment.