Thus pressed, Murray again wavered. Denying that 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 reverted to his former resolution, and peremptorily renewed the order for the artillery to spike the guns on the Olivo, and burn the carriages. Nor was even this unhappy action performed without confusion. The different orders received by Clinton in the course of the day had indicated the extraordinary vacillation of the commander-in-chief, and Clinton himself, forgetful of his own arrangements, with an obsolete courtesy took off his hat to salute an enemy’s battery which had fired upon him; but this waving of his hat from that particular spot was also the conventional signal for the artillery to spike the guns, and they were thus spiked prematurely. The troops were however all embarked in the night of the 12th, and many of the stores and horses were shipped on the 13th without the slightest interruption from the enemy; but eighteen or nineteen battering pieces, whose carriages had been burnt, were, with all the platforms, fascines, gabions, and small ammunition, in view of the fleet and army, triumphantly carried into the fortress. Sir J. Murray meanwhile seemingly unaffected by this misfortune, shipped himself on the evening of the 12th and took his usual repose in bed. [Sidenote: Laffaille Campagne de Catalonia.] While the English general was thus precipitately abandoning the siege, the French generals, unable to surmount the obstacles opposed to their junction, unable even to communicate by their emissaries, were despairing of the safety of Taragona. Suchet did not reach Tortoza before the 10th, but a detachment from the garrison, had on the 8th attempted to succour San Felipe, and nearly captured the naval captain Adam, colonel Prevot, and other officers, who were examining the country. On the other side Maurice Mathieu, having gathered troops from various places, reached Villa Franca early on the 10th, and deceiving even his own people as to his numbers, gave out that Decaen, who he really expected, was close behind with a powerful force. To give effect to this policy, he drove Copons from Arbos on the 11th, and his scouting parties entered 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 Taragona, 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, his main body never having passed Villa Franca.