Clausel had gone off from Bilbao on March 30, with a large escort, to join at Vittoria the newly arrived divisions of the Army of Portugal, those of Taupin and Foy, and was set on organizing a new attack on Mina. In the absence of both the Commander-in-Chief and of Palombini, Bilbao was very weakly garrisoned--not more than 2,000 men were left to General Rouget to defend a rather extensive system of outworks. On April 10th the Spaniards attacked him on both sides of the Nervion river, and would probably have broken into Bilbao but for the incapacity of Mendizabal, whose main body did not come up in time to assist the attack of the Biscayans on the other bank of the river. Rouget was still holding out when Palombini came to his rescue from Bergara via Durango, in two forced marches. The Spaniards thereupon dispersed, after their usual fashion, Mendizabal disappearing to the east, the Biscayans falling back on their old head-quarters at Guernica. Palombini was strong at the moment, having been joined by the brigade from Bayonne, under General Aussenac, which had been blocking the coast road. He therefore tried to surround the Biscayans with converging columns--but when he thought that he had cut them off from the inland, and was about to drive them into the water, the bulk of them were picked up at Bermeo by English cruisers, and landed farther down the coast. Only some baggage and a store of munitions fell into the pursuer’s hands (April 14). On this, Palombini, ‘convinced,’ says his admiring chronicler Vacani, ‘of the uselessness of trying to envelop or destroy local bands among mountains which they knew too well, when he could only dispose of columns of a few battalions for the pursuit,’ resolved to halt at Bilbao, and prepare for the siege of Castro. He put the brigade from Bayonne in charge of the high road to San Sebastian, and waited for the arrival of Foy from Vittoria. For he had been informed that this general, with his division of the Army of Portugal, was to be detailed to help him in the subjection of Biscay. Meanwhile April was half over, the insurgents had been often hunted but never caught, and Wellington might be expected to be on the move any morning: it was strange that he had not been heard of already.