The French train now advanced from Tortoza, and four pieces were placed in battery against Oropesa. On the 10th Suchet took the direction of the attack in person, and the fort situated upon an isolated rock, was breached in a few hours; but the garrison of the King’s Tower (a separate work placed on a small promontory, and commanding the harbour) refused to surrender, and was carried off, on the 11th, under the French fire, by the Magnificent. The French general having thus with a loss of only thirty men opened the road for his artillery, returned to Saguntum and pushed the siege of that place; but the difficulties were very great, the formation of the road to the batteries was itself a work of pain, and although his indefatigable troops had formed a breaching battery on the 12th, while seven small mortars and howitzers, placed on the right and left, had nearly silenced the Spanish fire, the muskets of the besiegers alone brought down from fifteen to twenty men. On the 17th the breaching battery being armed, opened its fire against the tower, and the new masonry crumbled away at once; yet the ancient work resisted the guns like a rock. On the 18th the fire recommenced, when the wall gave way to the stroke of the guns, and the assault was ordered; but from the height of the tower, which overlooked the works at a short distance, the preparations were early discovered, the Spaniards collecting on the breach repaired it with sand-bags, and regardless of the French fire, with loud cries provoked the attack. At five o’clock, four hundred men rushed forward as swiftly as the steepness of the ascent would permit. Soon, however, the head of the column was checked, the rear began to fire, the whole got into confusion, and when one-half had fallen without making the slightest impression on the defenders, the attempt was abandoned. After this signal failure the French erected a second battery of six pieces, one hundred and forty yards from the tower, and endeavoured to push the approach close to the foot of the breach, yet the plunging fire of the besieged baffled them; meanwhile Andriani the governor, having communication by signal with the ships in the Grao, was encouraged to continue his gallant defence, and was informed that he was already promoted for what he had done. But to understand Suchet’s embarrassments, from the protracted resistance of Saguntum, we must take a view of Lacy’s contemporary operations in Catalonia, and the proceedings of the Partidas against the French communications and posts in Aragon. CATALONIA. [Sidenote: August.] [Sidenote: Appendix, No. II. Section 2.]