All was uproar and confusion.

The repressive measures which the governor had been obliged to take against the disaffected had added to the Catalan hatred of the French, and the Austrian party determined to have vengeance upon the governor.

A report was circulated that he intended to carry away with him a number of the principal inhabitants in spite of the articles of capitulation.

This at once stirred up the people to fury, and they assailed and plundered the houses of the French and of the known partisans of the Duke d'Anjou.
They then turned upon the governor and garrison.

The latter dispersed through the city, and, unprepared for attack, would speedily have been massacred had not their late enemy been at hand to save them.
Peterborough, with his little party of dragoons, rode through the streets exhorting, entreating, and commanding the rioters to abstain.
When, as in some cases, the mob refused to listen to him, and continued their work, the dragoons belabored them heartily with the flats of their swords; and the surprise caused by seeing the British uniforms in their midst, and their ignorance of how many of the British had entered, did more even than the efforts of the dragoons to allay the tumult.