Macdonald was now in march from Barcelona towards Taragona, and Suchet to aid this operation attacked the Spanish troops at Falcet. General Habert fell on their camp in front the 19th, and to cut off the retreat, two detachments were ordered to turn it by the right and left; but Habert’s assault was so brisk, that before the flanking corps could take their stations the Catalans fled, leaving their general Garcia Navarro and three hundred men in the hands of the victors. But while Suchet obtained this success on the side of Falcet, the Valencian general Bassecour, thinking that the main body of the French would be detained by Navarro on the left bank of the Ebro, formed the design of surprising general Musnier at Uldecona. To aid this operation, a flotilla from the harbour of Peniscola, attacked Rapita, and other small posts occupied by the French, on the coast between the Cenia and the Ebro; and at the same time the governor of Tortoza menaced Amposta and the stations at the mouth of the Ebro. Bassecour moved against Uldecona in three columns, one of which, following the coast-road towards Alcanar, turned the French left, while another passing behind the mountains took post at Las Ventallas, in rear of Musnier’s position, to cut him off from Tortoza. The main body went straight against his front, and in the night of the 26th the Spanish cavalry fell upon the French camp outside the town; but the guards, undismayed, opened a fire which checked the attack, until the troops came out of the town and formed in order of battle. [Sidenote: Suchet’s Memoirs.] [Sidenote: Official Abstract of Mr. Wellesley’s Despatch. MSS.] At daylight the Spanish army was perceived covering the hills in front; and those in rear also, for the detachment at Ventallas was in sight; the French were thus surrounded and the action immediately commenced; but the Valencians were defeated with the loss of sixteen hundred men, and the detachment in the rear seeing the result made off to the mountains again. Bassecour then withdrew in some order behind the Cenia, where in the night Musnier surprised him, and at the same time sent the cuirassiers by the route of Vinaros to cut off his retreat, which was made with such haste and disorder that the French cavalry falling in with the fugitives near Benicarlo, killed or took nine hundred. Bassecour saved himself in Peniscola, and thither also the flotilla, having failed at Rapita, returned.