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 southern provinces, who had maintained a stubborn resistance under the leadership of Colonel José Ordoñez. A division was dispatched against them, under the intrepid Colonel Juan Gregorio de Las Heras, who defeated Ordoñez in Curapalihue and compelled him to shut liimself up in Talcahuano. Receiving reinforcements, the royalist leader again attacked Las Heras on the small hill of Gavilan near Concepcion, but was again defeated, May 5th, 1817. O'Higgins soon after arrived and Ordoñez was besieged on the small peninsula of Talcahuano, where he fortified his position, and, the royalist fleet commanding the sea, he was able to hold out against the superior force which O'Higgins brought against him for a period of six months, when assistance arrived from Peru.