Soult now learning from D’Erlon that all offensive movements on the side of Maya had ceased at twelve o’clock on the 31st, contemplated another attack on San Marcial, but in the course of the day general Rey’s report of the assault on San Sebastian reached him, and at the same time he heard that general Hill was in movement on the side of St. Jean Pied de Port. This state of affairs brought reflection. San Sebastian was lost, a fresh attempt to carry off the wasted garrison from the castle would cost five or six thousand good soldiers, and the safety of the whole army would be endangered by pushing headlong amongst the terrible asperities of the crowned mountain. For Wellington could throw his right wing and centre, forming a mass of at least thirty-five thousand men, upon the French left during the action, and he would be nearer to Bayonne than the French right when once the battle was engaged beyond the Lower Bidassoa. The army had lost in the recent actions three thousand six hundred men. General Vandermaesen had been killed, and four others, La Martiniere, Menne, Remond, and Guy, wounded, the first mortally; all the superior officers agreed that a fresh attempt would be most dangerous, and serious losses might draw on an immediate invasion of France before the necessary defensive measures were completed. Yielding to these reasons he resolved to recover his former positions and thenceforward remain entirely on the defensive, for which his vast knowledge of war, his foresight, his talent for methodical arrangement and his firmness of character, peculiarly fitted him. Twelve battles or combats fought in seven weeks, bore testimony that he had strived hard to regain the offensive for the French army, and willing still to strive if it might be so, he had called upon Suchet to aid him and demanded fresh orders from the emperor; but Suchet helped him not, and Napoleon’s answer indicated at once his own difficulties and his reliance upon the duke of Dalmatia’s capacity and fidelity. “_I have given you my confidence and can add neither to your means nor to your instructions._” The loss of the allies was one thousand Anglo-Portuguese, and sixteen hundred Spaniards. Wherefore the cost of men on this day, including the storming of San Sebastian, exceeded five thousand, but the battle in no manner disturbed the siege. The French army was powerless against such strong positions. Soult had brought forty-five thousand men to bear in two columns upon a square of less than five miles, and the thirty thousand French actually engaged, were repulsed by ten thousand, for that number only of the allies fought.