Towards the end of May, 1813, embarking 300 men of the 67th Regiment, under Colonel Prevost, an officer who had distinguished himself at the battle of Barrosa, we sailed with the expedition from Alicant to lay siege to the castle of the Col de Balaguer and the city of Tarragona. The land forces, under the command of Lieut.-General Sir John Murray, consisted of about 20,000 men, but, unfortunately, not more than 5000 were British and Germans, the rest being Spaniards and Sicilians. The naval part was under the orders of that intelligent and indefatigable officer, Rear-Admiral Benjamin Hallowell.
On the 3rd of June, when off the castle of the Col de Balaguer, the whole of the 67th Regiment, with Rolle’s and Dillon’s, and a company of artillery, making together about 900 men, were ordered to invest it. The navy was placed under the command of the gallant Captain Charles Adams, of the Invincible (74), by whose great exertions the troops, guns, and stores were soon landed, and who personally superintended every difficult and dangerous undertaking during the siege. Captain Carroll, of the Volcano, was landed to assist troops, and a more intrepid and excellent officer could not have been selected.
The fortress was situated on a high hill, in a most difficult pass, through which winds the main road from Tortosa to Tarragona. It was armed with twelve heavy pieces, two ten-inch mortars, two howitzers, and had a garrison of more than a hundred men. Its elevated position, and surrounding heights, difficult of access, required the greatest labour to drag up the guns and mortars necessary to establish our batteries. No time, however, was to be lost; Marshal Suchet, with 10,000 men, being in full march from the neighbourhood of Valencia to relieve it, and succour Tarragona.
After a siege of five days the place surrendered. I had the pleasure of assisting, with a party of seamen, to form the mortar battery, which was no sooner opened than the shells were thrown with such precision by the artillery that an expense magazine was blown up in the castle, which, just as our breaching battery was about to open, capitulated. An artilleryman and myself had a most providential escape. Being very busy placing sand bags on the battery, on the morning of the 8th, just before day-break, down came three of the enemy’s shells. I ordered the working party to get behind the sand bags, and lie flat on their faces to avoid the splinters. One shell from an howitzer exploded behind us; two ten-inch followed, one fell about a couple of yards in front of me and the artilleryman, which made us both jump to get out of its way, when down came the second on the other side of us. The man called out very coolly—“I’ll be d—— if we are not done now!” After falling on the ground both fuses went out, and, much to our satisfaction, the shells, of course, did not explode.
Captain Stodart, of the Strombolo, a brave officer, was employed to form the breaching battery, and Lieutenants Corbyn and P——, of H.M.S. Invincible, worked like slaves with their party to drag the heavy guns up hills, or what in England would be called mountains, by tackles and purchases.
The commander of the French fort was perfectly astonished to see the places the guns had been dragged up in so short a time; and Suchet, who calculated upon its holding out ten days, was in a great rage when he heard it had been taken in five. I have his address to his corps upon the subject by me now, in which he informs his army “that a military commission will sit upon the conduct of the commander of the fortress of Balaguer.”
We had done our part, and were looking for intelligence from our army before Tarragona with anxiety, as we could at night see the shells in the air, and hear the firing on both sides.
Colonel Prevost, and Captain Charles Adam, of the Invincible, thinking it advisable to make a reconnaissance towards Tortosa to gain intelligence of the advance of the French marshal (for the information we got from the Spaniards was so vague that we could place no dependence upon it), on the morning of the 9th of June they, in company with Lieutenant-Colonel Hamilton, Captain Arabin (Royal Artillery), Captain Du Cane, of the 20th Light Dragoons, with four of his men and myself, started from the castle we had taken, at three in the morning, all well mounted, to try and get a peep into Tortosa, about twenty miles from Balaguer, and where it was reported Suchet was to arrive in the course of the day.
After a pleasant ride of about sixteen miles, and as we had just got a glimpse of Tortosa, on reaching the summit of a hill we all at once entered a serpentine road, surrounded by high banks and ravines, which completely prevented our seeing beyond a short distance. Jogging on quietly, we met an old Spanish woman thumping two mules past us as hard as she could, calling out, “Los Franceses, los Franceses,” but not a word more could we get out of the signora. We, therefore, rode on to the next turn of the road, when, just at the corner, plump we came upon the advance guard of the French army, a regiment of cuirassiers. They for a moment stopped their horses, being as much surprised to see us as we were to meet them. With one glance they saw who we were—out came their carbines and swords—pop, pop, and a charge, which knocked over one of our dragoons, and “sauve qui peut,” or the devil take the hindmost, became the order of the day. Away we scampered—they after us, with a regular view halloa, and a flourish of French fashionable words, but not of the most select phraseology. Reader, if you wish to know them, I refer you to the scene of Madame Rambouillet and the Novice in Sterne’s “Sentimental Journey.” After a capital gallop of four miles, we regularly beat them, with the loss of only one of our party, who in the charge was knocked head over heels and taken prisoner. Luckily for us we had left a corporal’s guard of the 20th Light Dragoons about four miles in our rear upon a steep eminence, which commanded a good view of part of the road. The corporal, seeing how matters stood, and that we were coming back a deuced deal faster than we went, with a French regiment of cavalry after us, very cleverly came trotting up, and showed himself at the top of the hill with his men. The enemy, thinking we had a strong body of cavalry there, pulled up their horses and gave over the chase.
Our ride had not been for nothing—we had had a good gallop, and found out where our neighbours were, who towards evening drove in our picket of dragoons, and established themselves not far from us.