When the seamen were embarking the guns, orders were sent to abandon that business and collect boats for the reception of troops, the enemy being supposed close at hand; and notwithstanding Murray’s previous promise to hold the Olivo he now directed the artillery officer to spike the guns and burn the carriages. Then loud murmurs arose, army and navy were alike indignant, and so excited, that it is said personal insult was offered to the general. Three staff-officers repaired in a body to his quarters to offer plans and opinions, and the admiral, who did not object to raising the siege but to the manner of doing it, would not suffer the seamen to discontinue the embarkation of artillery; he however urged an attack upon the column coming from Barcelona, and opposed the order to spike the guns at the Olivo, offering to be responsible for carrying all clear off during the night. Murray again wavered. Denying he had ordered the battering-pieces to be spiked, he sent counter-orders, and directed a part of Clinton’s troops to advance towards the Gaya river; yet a few hours afterwards he peremptorily renewed the order to destroy the guns. Even this unhappy action was not performed without confusion. General Clinton, forgetful of his own arrangements, with an obsolete courtesy took off his hat to salute an enemy’s battery which had fired upon him, forgetting that this action from that particular spot was the conventional signal for the artillery to spike the guns: they were thus spiked prematurely. All the troops were embarked in the night of the 12th, and many stores and horses on the 13th, without interruption from the enemy; but nineteen battering-pieces, whose carriages had been burnt, were, in view of the fleet and army, carried in triumph, with all the platforms, fascines, gabions, and small ammunition, into the fortress! Murray, seemingly unaffected by this misfortune, shipped himself on the evening of the 12th and took his usual repose in bed! During these proceedings, the French, unable to surmount the obstacles opposed to their junction, unable even to communicate by their emissaries, were despairing of the safety of Tarragona. Suchet did not reach Tortoza before the 10th, but a detachment from the garrison had on the 8th attempted to succour San Felippe, and nearly captured the naval Captain Adam, Colonel Prevost, and other officers, who were examining the country. On the other side Maurice Mathieu reached Villa Franca the 10th, announcing that Decaen was close behind with a powerful force; he drove Copons from Arbos the 11th, and sent his scouting parties into Vendrills, as if he was resolved singly to attack Murray. Sir Edward Pellew had however landed his marines at Rosas, which arrested Decaen’s march; and Maurice Mathieu, alarmed at the cessation of fire about Tarragona, knowing nothing of Suchet’s movements and too weak to fight the allies alone, fell back in the night of the 12th to the Llobregat.