On the opposite side of the Urumea were certain sandy hills called the _Chofres_, through which the road from Passages passed to the wooden bridge over the river, and thence, by the suburb of Santa Catalina, along the top of a sea-wall which formed a _fausse braye_ for the horn-work. The flanks of the town were protected by simple ramparts. The one was washed by the water of the harbour, the other by the Urumea which at high tide covered four of the twenty-seven feet comprised in its elevation. This was the weak side of the fortress, for though covered by the river there was only a single wall ill-flanked by two old towers, and by the half bastion of San Elmo which was situated at the extremity of the rampart close under the Monte Orgullo. There was no ditch, no counter-scarp, or glacis, the wall could be seen to its base from the Chofre hills at distances varying from five hundred to a thousand yards, and when the tide was out the Urumea left a dry strand under the rampart as far as St. Elmo. However the guns from the batteries at Monte Orgullo especially that called the Mirador, could see this strand. The other flank of the town was secured by the harbour, in the mouth of which was a rocky island, called Santa Clara, where the French had established a post of twenty-five men. [Sidenote: Bellas’ Journal of French Sieges in Spain.] When the battle of Vittoria happened San Sebastian was nearly dismantled; many of the guns had been removed to form battering trains or to arm smaller ports on the coast, there were no bomb-proofs nor pallisades nor outworks, the wells were foul and the place was supplied with water by a single aqueduct. Joseph’s defeat restored its importance as a fortress. General Emanuel Rey entered it the 22d of June, bringing with him the escort of the convoy which had quitted Vittoria the day before the battle. The town was thus filled with emigrant Spanish families, with the ministers and other persons attached to the court; the population ordinarily eight thousand was increased to sixteen thousand and disorder and confusion were predominant. Rey, pushed by necessity, immediately forced all persons not residents to march at once to France granting them only a guard of one hundred men; the people of quality went by sea, the others by land, and fortunately all arrived safely for the Partidas would have given them no quarter. On the 27th general Foy while retreating before sir Thomas Graham threw a reinforcement into the place. The next day Mendizabal’s Spaniards appeared on the hills behind the ridge of San Bartolomeo and on the Chofres, whereupon general Rey burned the wooden bridge and both the suburbs, and commenced fortifying the heights of San Bartolomeo. The 29th the Spaniards slightly attacked San Bartolomeo, and were repulsed. [Sidenote: July.] [Sidenote: Sir G. Collier’s Despatch.]