Having discharged the first duty set him by Clausel, Foy left the Italians at Castro, to guard the coast and keep up communications with Santoña. He sent Sarrut southward to hunt for Longa, by way of Orduña; but the Spaniard crossed the Ebro and moved into the province of Burgos, evading pursuit. Then, finding that Lamartinière’s division was guarding the great road in this direction, he turned off north-westward, and escaped by Espinosa to the mountains of Santander. Sarrut, having lost him, turned back to Biscay. Meanwhile Foy himself, after retiring to Bilbao to give a few days of rest to his division, started out again on May 27th for a circular tour in Biscay. His object was to destroy the three Biscayan volunteer battalions which had given his predecessor so much trouble. Two he dispersed, but could not destroy, and they ultimately got together again in somewhat diminished numbers. The third was more unlucky: caught between three converging columns near Lequeytio, it was driven against the seashore and nearly annihilated--360 men were taken, 200 killed, only two companies got off into the hills (May 30th). But to achieve this result Foy had collected three brigades--5,000 men--who would have been better employed that day on the Esla, for Wellington was crossing that river at the moment--and where were the infantry of the Army of Portugal, who should have stood in his way? So while the British Army was streaming by tens of thousands into the undefended plains of Leon, Foy and Sarrut were guerrillero-hunting in Biscay, and Taupin and Barbot had just failed in the great chase after Mina in Aragon and Navarre. Such were the results of the Emperor’s orders for the pacification of the North. [Illustration: Battle of CASTALLA April 13 1813] SECTION XXXV: CHAPTER VI AN EPISODE ON THE EAST COAST. CASTALLA, APRIL 1813 During the winter months, from November to February, affairs had been quiet on the Mediterranean side of the Peninsula. The transient sojourn of the Armies of Soult and King Joseph in the kingdom of Valencia, which had so much troubled the mind of General Maitland, had lasted no more than a few weeks. After they had marched off to retake Madrid, no traces remained of them, in the end of October, save the mass of sick, convalescents, and Spanish refugees which they had left behind--guests most undesired--in charge of Suchet. There was no longer any fear of a siege of Alicante, or of the expulsion of the Anglo-Sicilian expeditionary corps from Spain.