fantry, with the view of forcing the left of the line, which the vanguard of General Whittingham covered; but these troops, and the English whom he encountered at this point, received the attack with the utmost steadiness; they allowed the enemy to approach to the very point of their bayonets, and then charged them, breaking the French column; and killing, wounding, or making prisoners those who composed it. Suchet, having observed the result of his first attempt, was obliged to change his plans to reduce his operations to a series of movements, and finally to put himself in retreat. General Murray immediately ordered nine battalions of infantry, and 1000 cavalry, with ten pieces of artillery, to pursue; this occasioned great loss to the enemy's columns, which continued to retire, beaten and fatigued. As the superiority of the French in cavalry, however, gave them great advantages for proceeding in the direct line, General Murray commenced a flank move. ment by Alcov, in hopes of reaching the entrenched camp at St Felipe, before the enemy's arrival; but the French having reached Alcov only a quarter of an hour before the allies, this plan was frustrated. Sir John Murray then returned to his position.

In this action, Suchet made his first experiment of the valour of British troops; and in contending with them, was for the first time repulsed and overthrown. The allied army, how. ever, did not make any attempt to fol. low up its success. The advance from Alicant indeed appears to have been made less with the view of pushing forward in that direction, than for the purpose of seconding the grand opera. tion in the north of Spain, and of preventing Suchet from detaching any of his force to the assistance of Joseph Buonaparte. When Lord Wellington, however, began to move from Sala. manca, Sir John Murray, under his di

rection, was called upon to execute a new plan of operations.

As the operations of Sir John Murray were not attended with the success which had been expected—as the honour of this officer, and, it may be thought, that of the army under his command, were involved in these transactions-and as every particular connected with them received the utmost publicity, in the course of the investigation which was ordered into the conduct of the general, we shall endeavour to give a distinct and impartial account of the whole proceedings.

It has already been stated, that before the expedition to Tarragona was undertaken, the French army occupied so strong a position on the line of the Xucar, that it was not judged expedient for the allied armies, composed as they were, to run the risk of a direct attack on its front, before weakening its numbers by a movement on its flank or rear. To accomplish this object, two plans offered themselves to the commander of the forces; the one comprehended a movement of a considerable portion of the allied armies by Requena and Utiel, and by Tortosa and Lerida, to co-operate on the right flank of the French, and towards the rear of their position. The other contemplated a naval expedition, by means of which a considerable force might be landed at some distance in the rear of the enemy's left flank. The execution of the first plan must have been so difficult and circuitous, and the result so doubtful, that the naval expedition, if practicable, was very much to be preferred. In pursuance of this object, detailed instructions, which bear date 14th April, 1813, were accordingly given by the Duke of Wellington to Lieutenant-General Sir John Murray. By these instructions, if a body of men, to the number of 10,000 at the least, and of the description specified, could be embarked on the naval expedition, it

would be greatly endangered, if not entirely defeated.

On the 2d of June, the fleet destined for this expedition, anchored to the eastward of the point of Salon; and the soldiers, who had been previously ordered to hold themselves in readiness to land, were put into the boats; but the surf was so high, that, in the opinion of Admiral Hallowell, who commanded the naval branch of the expedition, it would have been unsafe to land, and the troops accordingly returned to the ships.

Before the fleet came to anchor, a brigade, commanded by Colonel Prevost, was detached to the Coll de Ballaguer ; and the Spanish general Copons, in compliance with a request made to him, detached, during the night, two battalions to co-operate in the attack on Fort St Phillippe. On the 5th, two other Spanish battalions joined, in consequence of some movement of the enemy from Tortosa; and on the 7th the fort capitulated.

On the 3d of June, soon after sunrise, the debarkation commenced; and, during the course of that day, the whole of the infantry, with some fieldpieces, were landed. Tarragona was immediately reconnoitred and invest ed; the point of attack was decided upon, and a place for the depot of artillery stores fixed.-Having reconnoitred the fortress, the general decidedon attacking it on the western side, which was not only the weakest, but the most convenient for bringing up the stores to the batteries. Unfortunately, however, the enemy had very nearly completed the re-establishment of the Fuerte Reale, (which lies between 350 and 400 yards from the body of the place), which it was necessary to take, before any batteries could be erceted against the town. The enemy was still at work at the fort; and to prevent his strengthening it, two batteries were begun on the

evening of the 4th; although the assailants, according to the report of General Murray, were yet in no state of preparation to carry on the operations of the siege.-On the morning of the 6th these batteries opened their fire with good effect; but it was found expedient to erect another battery, of two 24-pounders, which was begun and completed on the night of the 6th. At day-break of the 7th, this battery opened its fire; and, on the morning of the 8th, the Fuerte Real was reported, by the commanding engineer, to be practicably breached.

When this officer, however, made his report to the general, he requested that the work should not be stormed, as he could turn the immediate possession to no account, while an attempt to retain the fort would cost the lives of many men. Every delay was to be regretted, but as the state of the fort was such, that it could be taken when convenient, General Murray consented to defer the attack, and directed that the fire upon the fort should continue only to prevent its re-establishment.

During this time the artillery and engineer horses, and the cavalry and artillery stores, were landed, when the weather would permit, and the engineer officers continued their preparations for the siege. On the 8th, the operations were sufficiently advanced to enable Major Thackaray, the chief officer of engineers, at a distance of about 450 yards from the body of the place, to construct two heavy batteries to enfilade it. On the night of the iOth, and the morning of the 11th, their fire was opened; but although the fire was well directed, and kept up with great spirit, that of the garrison was undiminished. During the course of the day, Major Thackaray having reported that he was now perfectly prepared to push the siege with vigour, the fire on the

Fuerte Reale was increased, and it was decided to storm that work during -the night. The intelligence, however, which General Murray received late that evening, of the approach of Marshal Suchet, and of the march of a French column from Barcelona, prevented him from carrying his intention into execution." He thought," according to his own statement, "it would have been an useless waste of the lives of British soldiers, to attempt to carry a work which he saw must be abandoned the next day." So far had the operations against Tarragona been carried when the siege was raised.

"In the first view of the case," said Sir John Murray, when addressing Lord Wellington on the subject of this miscarriage, "your lordship may perhaps be of opinion, that more might have been done; and, under more favourable circumstances, no doubt we might have been farther advanced, but under no circumstances materially Your lordship, in judging of this point, will, I hope, take into consideration the strength of the place, which although the outworks (with the exception of the Fuerte Reale) were destroyed, was still in a formidable state of defence, such indeed, that Major Thackaray, on the 8th or 9th, declared it his deliberate opinion, that the place could not be taken in less than fourteen or fifteen days from that time.'

"It is likewise to be recollected, that the army invested the place without a single preparation having been made for a siege. We had not a single fascine or gabion, nor did the vessel arrive, which had been sent to Ivica for the materials collected, until the evening of the 4th or 5th. It was not until the day following their arrival that the materials could be brought to the depot.

"A considerable delay was farther experienced by Major Thackaray from

the irregularity in landing the storesmuch of this, from the surf and wea ther, was probably unavoidable; but much likewise proceeded from the irregularity of the transport boats, and from their working in the night, when they could not be seen. A considerable delay arose likewise from the slowness, and the great unwillingness with which the foreign troops worked. This was a most serious inconvenience, and delayed the opening of the two last batteries for 24 hours. It required an additional party of 200 British soldiers, to carry to the batteries the ammunition which one of these parties threw away when they came under fire.

"All these circumstances together tended to retard our progress; but still, from the 4th at night, till the 11th in the morning, five batteries were constructed; and we were then in a state to prosecute the siege without fear of delay, had we by good fortune been enabled to continue it. Before Before I conclude this part of the subject, I beg to state that it was not till after the fall of the Coll de Ballaguer, that, in point of fire, we derived any material assistance from the naval branch of the expedition.-The bombs and gunboats came from thence on the 8th and 9th, and I think, but I cannot for certain recollect if it was so, that some of them were again sent back on the 10th and 11th."

General Murray defended his conduct, in raising the siege, by stating, that very large French armies were advancing to the relief of the place. From the most accurate statements which he had it in his power to procure, he estimated Marshal Suchet's force, in the kingdom of Valencia, to be 23 or 24,000 men, and the army of Catalonia, including the garrison, to be 22,900, composing altogether an army of 46,000 men. The French however, could not have brought all

this force to act against the allied army in Catalonia; but suppose they left in Valencia 11,000 men, (and it appears they did not leave so many) and 10,000 in the garrisons of Catalonia, a disposeable army of 2+,000 men at least was still at the command of Suchet. To oppose this army, General Murray stated that he had about 13,000 men under his own immediate command; and from general Copons's statement, his disposeable force amounted to 8,500 men, without pay, without discipline, without a single piece of cannon, without the means of subsisting, and totally incapable of acting in the field. The allied army therefore consisted of 21,500 men ; of whom 4,500 were British and Germans, 13 or 14,000 Sicilians, 600 Calabrese, and the remainder Spaniards. In cavalry the enemy were greatly superior. Such were the strength and composition of an army, with which General Murray was expected to meet the enemy's force, composed of the best troops of France, and long habituated to act in a body.-But the difference in the situation of the armies was not less striking. The French general possessed, in every direction, fortresses around him to cover his army, if defeated; to furnish his supplies, or to retire upon, if he wished to avoid an action, for the purpose of bringing up more troops. The allied army, on the contrary, was in the open field, without one serviceable point d'appui, and without a place at which to halt even for a day. But in case of retreat, whither could it retire? To the ships. Here, indeed, the army would have been safe, if it ever reached them; but an embarkation, which it would have required three days at least to complete, was too serious an operation for any army in an open bay, and on a beach, where experience had already shewn it was impossible to disembark, but in: be lightest boats. Had af

fairs come to this extremity, the allies must have lost every horse belonging to the army,-every piece of field artillery, and, in all probability, the greater part, if not the whole, of the covering division of infantry.

The first reports of the enemy's movements reached General Murray on the 7th June, when he learned that the disposeable column from Gerona was in march for Barcelona, and that every effort was making to collect 10,000 men immediately at that place; to this corps were attached 14 pieces of artillery. This report was confirm. ed from every quarter. General Copons concurred in the statement; Colonel Manso, who commanded the advanced posts, and who had a constant commu. nication with Barcelona, daily made the same report; on one occasion, he rated the enemy's force so high as 12,000 men; in short, from whatever source General Murray derived intelligence, he found the numbers to agree. On the 10th this column occupied Villa Franca; and on the 11th established itself at Vendrill, which is about twelve hours march from Tarragona, whence it had the choice of proceeding by either of three convenient roads With a very inadequate disposeable force, each of these roads must have been occupied by the allied army; and the two corps, (such is the difficulty of communication) posted where the enemy did not advance, could not have joined the third body, which would thus have been exposed to the whole force of the assailants. This corps of the enemy, it is true, suddenly broke up (but after the expedi tion had re-embarked) alarmed by the appearance of Sir Edward Pellew's fleet in the Bay of Rossas, an event with which General Murray was unacquainted.

On the other hand, from Valencia Marshal Suchet was advancing with the utmost rapidity.-On the 9th, General