The 7th Mendizabal tried, unsuccessfully, to set fire to the convent of San Bartolomeo. The 9th Graham arrived with British and Portuguese troops, and on the 13th the Spaniards marched away. At this time Reille was at Vera and Echallar, in a menacing position, but Wellington drove him thence on the 15th and established the seventh and light divisions there; thus covering the passes over the Peña de Haya mountain, by which the siege might have been interrupted. Before Graham arrived the French had constructed a redoubt on San Bartolomeo, connecting it with the convent of that name, which they also fortified. These outworks were supported by posts in the ruined houses of the San Martin suburb, and by a circular redoubt, formed of casks, on the main road, half-way between the convent and horn-work. Hence, working along the isthmus, it was necessary to carry in succession three lines covering the town, and a fourth behind it, at the foot of Monte Orgullo, before the castle of La Mota could be assailed: seventy-six pieces were mounted on the walls. The besieging army consisted of the fifth division under General Oswald, and the Portuguese brigades of J. Wilson and Bradford, reinforced by detachments from the first division. Including the artillery-men, some seamen commanded by Lieutenant O’Reilly of the Surveillante, and one hundred regular sappers and miners, now for the first time used in the sieges of the Peninsula, nearly ten thousand men were employed, with forty pieces of artillery. The siege depôt was at Passages, from whence to the Chofre sand-hills was only one mile and a half of good road, and a pontoon bridge was laid over the Urumea river above the Chofres; but from thence to the height of Bartolomeo was more than five miles of very bad road.