It has been shown that Lord Wellington put every armed body of the Peninsula in movement against the French when he commenced the march to Vittoria; and under his combinations the Duke del Parque should have joined Elio from Andalusia, before the battle of Castalla, which would have raised the allied forces there to fifty thousand men, including the irregulars. Del Parque with the usual Spanish procrastination delayed his arrival until the end of May; and then Murray had to execute his part of the following plan, sketched by Wellington to hamper Suchet and prevent him from moving to the king’s assistance. The Spaniards, numerous but unwieldy, were to oppose that marshal in front on the Xucar, while Murray with the Anglo-Sicilians was to embark and sail for the siege of Tarragona in his rear: if he detached men to raise the siege the Spaniards were to advance, and Murray was to return and aid them to keep the country thus gained: if Suchet came back to recover his ground this operation was to be repeated. On the 31st of May Murray, in pursuance of this arrangement, sailed with fifteen thousand men under arms, his British and Germans being about eight thousand, his cavalry seven hundred. His battering-train was complete and powerful, the materials for gabions and fascines were previously collected at Iviça, and the naval part, under Admiral Hallowel, was strong in ships of the line, frigates, bomb-vessels, gun-boats and transports. There was however no cordiality between General Clinton, the second in command, and Murray; nor between the latter and his quartermaster-general Donkin; nor between Donkin and the admiral: subordinate officers also, adopting false notions, some from vanity, some from hearsay, added to the uneasy state of the leaders, and there was much tale-bearing. Neither admiral nor general was very sanguine as to success, and in no quarter was there a clear comprehension of Lord Wellington’s ably devised plan. When the fleet passed Valencia with a fair wind Suchet knew the expedition aimed at Catalonia, and prepared to aid that principality, but he could not march before the 7th of June. Murray’s armament however, having very favourable weather, anchored on the evening of the 2nd in the Bay of Tarragona, whence five ships of war were sent with two battalions of infantry and some guns, under Colonel Prevost to attack San Felippe de Balaguer, a fort garrisoned by a hundred men and only sixty feet square. But it was on a steep isolated rock in the gorge of a pass, blocking the only carriage-way from Tortoza to Tarragona, and though the mountains on either hand commanded it, they were nearly inaccessible themselves, and great labour was required to form the batteries.