About this period the available men of the party fitted up the ‘Columbia’ steamer for the accommodation of troops, and a storehouse for the use of the squadron. At Passages, also, the carpenters converted the church into a commissariat depôt for stores and provisions, and strengthened and improved the fortifications around San Sebastian and the heights. All the works were carried out with difficulty; for the Spanish authorities could scarcely command the use of a plank or even a nail for their purposes, and it was only by the force of habitual and urgent requisitions, that they could be induced to press for any materials for the service of the department. By the ‘Alonzo’ transport a reinforcement of eleven rank and file arrived in May, increasing the detachment to thirty-one of all ranks. Late in the month, these men, with others of the party, were, at the recommendation of General O’Donnell, detached to Casa Aquirre on the left of Venta, to render it sufficiently defensive to receive the garrison of Astigaraga in the event of its being compelled to retire. The working party consisted of a company of the Spanish marine battalion of seventy soldiers and twenty peasants, and the position was completed with the necessary works by March, 1839. On the 24th June, twenty-five of the detachment moved with a part of the army to the river Orio, and, under fire, levelled the parapets and works of the Carlists. In October, four men of the party in plain clothes under orders of secrecy, accompanied Colonel Colquhoun of the royal artillery, and Lieutenant Vicars of the engineers, to the headquarters of Muñagorri, to assist in putting him in motion and to secure his position. The mission reached Sara on the 17th, then passed to a hill to the east of La Rune mountain, about four miles from the village, where the chief was posted, and afterwards to St. Jean Pied de Port; but owing to the opposition of Aquirre, the commandant of Valcarlos, who would not allow the pacificators to take up quarters in his neighbourhood, the expedition, unable from this cause to assist the Fuerist chief, returned to San Sebastian on the 24th October. The same sappers, in plain clothes as before,[321] accompanied the above-named officers on a second mission to Muñagorri in November. The party reached St. Jean Pied de Port viâ Bayonne on the 5th. Aquirre, acting under the orders of Espartero, was firm in his resolution to resist the pacificators in the occupation of Valcarlos; and as he would not yield a pass to the force of Muñagorri, the project of entering Spain at Valcarlos was necessarily abandoned, and the expedition once more retraced its steps to San Sebastian, where it arrived on the 16th. ----- Footnote 321: