Lord William Bentinck on landing was informed that Suchet was at Tortoza with from eight to twelve thousand men, Maurice Mathieu with seven thousand at Cambrils. To drive the latter back and re-invest Taragona was easy, and the place would have fallen because the garrison had exhausted all their powder in the first siege; but this lord William did not know, and to renew the attack vigorously was impossible, because all the howitzers and platforms and fascines had been lost, and the animals and general equipment of the army were too much deteriorated by continual embarkations, and disembarkations, to keep the field in Catalonia. Wherefore he resolved to return to Alicant, not without hope still to fulfil Wellington’s instructions by landing at Valencia between Suchet and Harispe. The re-embarkation was unmolested, the fort of Balaguer was destroyed, and one regiment of Whittingham’s division, destined to reinforce Copons’ army, being detached to effect a landing northward of Barcelona, the fleet put to sea; but misfortune continued to pursue this unhappy armament. A violent tempest impeded the voyage, fourteen sail of transports struck upon the sands off the mouth of the Ebro, and the army was not entirely disembarked at Alicant before the 27th. Meanwhile marshal Suchet, seeing the English fleet under sail and taught by the destruction of the fort of Balaguer, that the allies had relinquished operations in Lower Catalonia, marched with such extraordinary diligence as to reach Valencia in forty-eight hours after quitting Tortoza, thus frustrating lord William’s project of landing at Valencia.