repulsed, and repeated the attempt with five battalions, but Clauzel brought up two guns, and a sharp skirmish took place in the wood which lasted for several hours, the French endeavouring to regain the whole of their old entrenchments and the Spaniards to recover the fort. Neither succeeded and San Barbe, too near the enemy’s position to be safely held, was resigned with a loss of two hundred men by the French and five hundred by the Spaniards. Soon after this isolated action a French sloop freighted with stores for Santona attempted to run from St. Jean de Luz, and being chased by three English brigs and cut off from the open sea, her crew after exchanging a few distant shots with one of the brigs, set her on fire and escaped in their boats to the Adour. Head-quarters were now fixed in Vera, and the allied army was organized in three grand divisions. The right having Mina’s and Morillo’s battalions attached to it was commanded by sir Rowland Hill, and extended from Roncesvalles to the Bastan. The centre occupying Maya, the Echallar, Rhune, and Bayonette mountains, was given to marshal Beresford. The left extending from the Mandale mountain to the sea was under sir John Hope. This officer succeeded Graham who had returned to England. Commanding in chief at Coruña after sir John Moore’s death, he was superior in rank to lord Wellington during the early part of the Peninsular war, but when the latter obtained the baton of field-marshal at Vittoria, Hope with a patriotism and modesty worthy of the pupil of Abercrombie the friend and comrade of Moore offered to serve as second in command, and lord Wellington joyfully accepted him, observing that he was the “_ablest officer in the army_.” The positions of the right and centre were offensive and menacing, but the left was still on the defensive, and the Bidassoa, impassable at high water below the bridge, was close behind. However the ridges were strong, a powerful artillery was established on the right bank, field-works were constructed, and although the fords below Behobia furnished but a dangerous retreat even at low water, those above were always available, and a pontoon bridge laid down for the passage of the guns during the action was a sure resource. The front was along the heights of the Croix des Bouquets facing Urogne and the camp of the Sans Culottes, and there was a reserve in an entrenched camp above Andaya. The right of the line rested on the Mandale, and from that mountain and the Bayonette the allies could descend upon the flank of an attacking army. [Sidenote: Appendix 7, sect. 2.]