7 JANUARY 1837, Page 5

Fortune has changed sides once more ill the Peninsula ;

and the Carlisti, lately so triumphant, are now a band of defeated fugitives. The siege of Bilboa has been raised ; VILLAREAL completely beaten ; and the Pretender himself is not secure even in his mountain retreat. The important action to which we refer took place on the 24th of December, and on Christmas-day ESPAR- TERO entered Bilboa. It was with difficulty that he was per- suaded, by Colonel Wymoit and the British officers commanding the vessels in the river, to commence the attack, which coded so prosperously ; and without the strenuous assistance of the latter, nothing would have been done. About four o'clock in the after- noon of the 24th, during a heavy fall of snow, a body of the Queen's troops were carried across the river which lay between them and the Carlists, in rafts and launches under the directioa of Captain LAPIDGE and Lieutenant LE HARDY, and protected by the fire of the British Marine Artillery, under the command of Major COLQUHOUN. They were landed below a battery, which had been a terrible obstacle to ESPARTERO. The battery was im- mediately taken ; and the Carlists abandoned the broken bridge of Luchana, which they had fortified. The bridge was repaired with speed, so as to allow the main body of the army to pass over it. As soon as the battalions had formed, they pressed forward to attack the Carlist fortifications on the heights overlooking Bilboa. After a smart conflict, these were taken ; but about nine o'clock, the Carlists made a desperate attempt to regain them. The conflict continued for four or five hours ; but finally the Carlists were de- feated on all points, and fled with precipitation, leaving all their ammunition and twenty-five pieces of cannon in possession of the victors. In one part of the action, ESPARTERO exhibited great personal courage. Though suffering acutely from a painful dis- ease, he placed himself at the head of two battalions, and carried

a battery of three heavy guns and the height and fort of Bande- Royal Family ; providing for the succession of the Duke of CAM- ras, at the point of the bayonet. Th.; loss of the vanquished in BRI DGE and his son, in Case of the extinction of the CUMBERLAND killed and wounded is not known ; bir. It must have been very line. The absolute power of the King is asserted throughout severe, as even the t ictom acknowledge a loss of about eight the " Royal Family Law." hundred. ESPARTERO, immediately on his entrance to Bilboa,

commissioned Colonel WYent to give kis warmest thanks to the Great discontent has been excited in Greece by the prosecution British officers, assuring them that without their aid he could not of a Liberal paper, the Soter, by Count ARMANSPERG. The have relieved Bilboa. That town had suffered dreadfully during Count used to be considered statesman enough to despise such the siege: a considerable part of it was in ruins ; about twelve paltry work.

hundred of the garrison had been killed; and the scarcity of pro- visions was such that half a cat was sold for two English shit- Accounts have been received from Canada to the 3d of Decem- lings, and eggs at a shilling each. ber. The weather was excessively cold, and the navigation of A division of Portuguese auxiliaries, 6000 strong, has arrived the St. Lawrence impeded. An extensive fire in Quebec had at Vittoria; and the force under General EVANS is to be increased destroyed fifty-two houses. In the Parliament of Upper Canada, to 15,000 men, to enable him to attack the Carlists in the neighbour- Mr. AVKAv moved a series of resolutions relative to the boundary hood of San Sebastian, while ESPARTERO presses them in another of the two provinces, and asserting the expediency of annexing the direction. If the success gained before Bilboa is improved as it island of Montreal, and all that part of Lower Canada which lies ought to be, the insurrection may be confined to a very small ex- between Montreal and Upper Canada, to thelatter province. By tent of country, if not totally suppressed ; for it is said that the this arrangement Upper Canada would gain a sea-port. The re- moral effect of the Royalist victory is visible in the desertion of solutions were laid on the table. numbers of the peasantry from the Carlist standard, and in quarrels among the Pretender's officers. But if the insurgents be allowed time to recover their spirits and their numbers, little will have The second session of the twenty-fourth Congress of the United been done towards the pacification of the country, or the eventual States was opened on the 5th of December ; and the next day the suppression of the rebellion, by the Anglo-Spanish victory at two Houses received from President JACKSON avowedly " the last Bilboa. annual message " that he would ever present to them. This cir-