During these operations, General Hill had taken up a strong position at Irrueta, sixteen miles from the pass of Aretesque, where he opposed, for the time being, the farther progress of the Count d'Erlon. This position covered the flank of General Picton's column, retrograding from Zubiri, and prevented the Count d'Erlon from uniting with the Duke of Dalmatia; and also enabled the sixth division to march direct to the rear from San Estevan, and to unite at the well-arranged point _d'appui_, five miles in front of Pampeluna, where, on the 27th, the general-in-chief joined those troops which had retired from Zubiri, under the command of Generals Picton, Cole, Byng, Campbell, and Morillo, and who were now drawn up on a strong ridge in front of Pampeluna, and flanked by the rivers Arga and Lanz. General Picton was in a manner thrown back on the left of the Arga, in front of Olaz, and supported by General Cotton, with the cavalry in reserve, for the purpose of preventing the enemy from taking the right of the army in reverse by the road from Zubiri. The enemy, who had followed the march of the troops by that road, had no sooner arrived opposite the third division, than by an oblique prolongation to their right, they began to extend their line across the front of the General-in-chief, under a fire of small-arms,—by which manœuvre they succeeded in cutting off General Hill's retreat by the Maya road, running through Ortiz; he, therefore, having passed through Lanz, hedged off diagonally in a westerly direction, and, by an oblique march, formed a junction with the seventh division (from St. Estevan) at Lizasso, thence to co-operate, if possible, with the left of the General-in-chief, whose position in front of Pampeluna was about eighteen miles from that place. During these various movements, General Graham, with the first and fifth divisions, and a corps of Spaniards, remained stationary on the left bank of the Bidassoa, for the double purpose of covering St. Sebastian, (the siege of that place was now converted into a blockade, and the battering train embarked at the port of los Passages,) and watching General Villate. The latter lined the opposite bank of the river, to be in readiness to assume the offensive, for the purpose of raising the siege of St. Sebastian, or hanging on General Graham's rear, in the event of the Duke of Dalmatia gaining a victory at Pampeluna, or succeeding in cutting off in detail the various divisions of the British army, now thrown into echelon, and extending from the banks of the Bidassoa, in front of Irun, to seven miles in an easterly direction beyond Pampeluna; a distance of at least sixty miles for the army to unite to either flank, (between two fortresses, whose ramparts were garnished with the cannon and small-arms of the enemy,) on an irregular quarter circle: amid multifarious barren rocks, towering mountains, and extensive forests, over whose inhospitable