In spite of all this, Wellington started, on the morning of the 22nd June, with six divisions and the light cavalry, for Salvatierra, and on the 25th reached Pampeluna, which he immediately blockaded. After much marching about during the following few weeks, in the endeavour to clear the whole country of the enemy, the 51st assisted in driving the fugitives out of the valley of the Bastan, and then followed towards the Pyrenees, taking up a position at Echallar. During the last week of July and the first week of August the regiment came in for some sharp fighting, more especially on the heights above Ostiz, where it suffered the loss of thirty men, and again at the pass of Dona Maria. From that time until the end of August the 7th Division was occupied in watching the passes of Echallar and Zagaramurdi; but on the 30th it received sudden orders to strike tents and march to the bridge of Lesaca, for the purpose of covering the operations now in active progress against San Sebastian. Previous to this, Marshal Soult, who had relieved King Joseph in supreme command of the French army in the Pyrenees, had reorganised his forces, and, towards the end of July, had made a bold but unsuccessful attempt to relieve the garrison of Pampeluna, being very severely handled in withdrawing to the Pyrenees, and it was in his overthrow that the 51st assisted at Ostiz, Dona Maria, and elsewhere, as mentioned above. The French marshal then took up a line of defence along the right bank of the Bidassoa, from its mouth up-stream to the village of Vera (situated at the point where the river bends almost at right angles), and onwards across the foothills and ridges of the Pyrenees to St Jean Pied de Port. In the meantime, Wellington, having disposed his troops so as to watch Soult all along the line, proceeded with the siege of San Sebastian, the great fortress standing on the sea-coast, some fifteen miles (as the crow flies) from Vera. The place was strong, well-provisioned and well-garrisoned, and Wellington was insufficiently equipped to reduce it quickly; moreover, Soult's activity necessitated the employment of large bodies of the allied army at a distance from the fortress. So much, in fact, was this the case that, towards the end of July, Wellington was obliged to utilise the services of so many of the besieging troops elsewhere that he found it necessary to convert the siege into a simple blockade. When, however, he had got rid of all these difficulties, and when Soult had been forced back, Wellington found it possible to renew the siege of San Sebastian. The heavy guns and other siege necessaries, for which he had waited for so long, having arrived from England in the middle of August, the British commander returned to the charge with all the determination for which he was ever noted. For ten days the great guns battered the walls, during which period the besiegers suffered severely from the fire of the enemy's artillery, and were constantly called upon