fording rivers where the bridges had been blown up or otherwise destroyed, till on the 21st of June -on nearly the same ground where, some four hundred years before, Edward the Black Prince, with his English knights and archers, defeated Henry the Bastard-once more a great trial of strength was to be made by the French and the Allied armies.

The former were totally defeated, and never was there a victory more complete, more glorious to the victors, or more disastrous to the vanquished!

The investment of San Sebastian rapidly followed under the orders on Sir Thomas Graham. Of the storming party on the night of the 31st August, 200 were volunteers from the brigade of Guards. The forlorn-hope, consisting in all of 750 chosen men, advanced with loud cheers up the wide and terrible breach, under a fire so close, so concentrated, and so dreadful, that, as General Graham has recorded, "no man outlived the attempt to gain the ridge"! All were swept into eternity; but again the attack was renewed by others, and by the 31st the garrison surrendered, but not until 2,300 of our soldiers had perished before the walls.

All hope of the French being successful in Spain had now died away, and ere long they found - themselves unable to keep the victors from the hitherto boasted soil of France.

In October, Wellington forced their lines on

the Bidassoa, a river long the subject of hostile contest between the kings of France and Spain; in the fighting on the 7th and 9th, eleven men of the 3rd Guards were killed and wounded, with the same number of the Coldstream; but on the 14th of April in the ensuing year, the Brigade was engaged in repelling that terrible, sanguinary, and wicked sortie, made by the infuriated garrison of Bayonne (after the treaty of Paris had been ratified), and in that affair the 3rd Guards suffered severely, and had Lieutenant Francis Holbourne (before mentioned) mortally wounded.

General Hay was killed; General Stopford wounded; Sir John Hope (afterwards Earl of Hopetoun) was also wounded, unhorsed, and taken prisoner; while more than 800 of our men were killed, wounded, or taken with him; but by bayonet and sabre the French were driven in, after a useless waste of human life-a waste that was all the more to be regretted as Napoleon had already abdicated, and adopted, as the scene of -his exile, the little island of Elba.

So closed the war of more than twenty years, and the summer of 1814 found the Peninsular Brigade of Guards again in quarters at Windsor and Portman Street barracks.

Prior to the closing events of the Spanish war, the second battalion of the 3rd Guards had embarked for the Netherlands, on the 24th November, 1813, with other troops, under Sir Thomas

Graham, to aid the Dutch, who were making an energetic attempt to free themselves from the power of Napoleon, and had declared in favour of the Prince of Orange.

In marching through Holland during the winter of the year, the sufferings of the troops were great; no less than 120 men of the 4th battalion of the 1st Royal Scots perished in a snowstorm, while traversing the forest of Shrieverdinghen. Amid ice, and snow, and fierce blasts of biting wind, that swept over Beveland and the Drowned-land, at ten o'clock on the night of the 8th March, the strong fortress of Bergen-op-Zoom was assailed by Graham at the head of 4,000 British bayonets.

The half-frozen ditches and muddy sluices were crossed; the Scots Royals marching over the Zoom under a fire of grape, canister, and musketry, rushed to storm the Water-port, but became exposed to the guns of the arsenal, and were hemmed in on all sides; thus the whole of the 4th battalion was taken after a furious resistance, during which, to save the colours from the disgrace of becoming trophies, they were sunk in the Zoom by Lieutenant Galbraith.

The attempt to take the fortress by a coup-demain completely failed, and after the British had lost 300 killed, and 1,800 taken prisoners, a suspension of hostilities was agreed to between Generals Graham and Bizanet, and the second battalion of the 3rd Guards marched successively to quarters in Antwerp, Mechlin, and Brussels,

THE

second battalion was not destined to

remain long quiet in the Netherlands. The landing of Napoleon from Elba soon convulsed all Europe; preparations for war were resumed, and the great Duke again took the field, for the last time, at the head of a British and Hanoverian army.

In that army the first division of Infantry, led by Major-General Cook, consisted of 2nd and 3rd battalions of the 1st Guards, forming the 1st brigade, under Major-General Maitland; and of the 2nd battalions of the Coldstream and 3rd Guards from the Netherlands, forming the 2nd brigade, under Major-General Byng, an old Peninsular officer of the regiment. The battalion was led by Colonel Francis Hepburn.

In the advance from Brussels, the defence of Quatre Bras, and during the retreat on the 17th, the losses of the 3rd Guards were trivial when contrasted with what they were to suffer on the great and terrible 18th of June, 1815.

In the Waterloo dispatches of the Duke of Wellington, and in many other accounts of his

"King-making victory," the name of the gallant Lord Saltoun, with the 1st or Grenadier Guards, is generally mentioned in connection with the defence of the orchard of Hougomont, and more especially by the guides who now conduct visitors over the field; but from the document embodied in these pages it would appear that his lordship was, in reality, there but a small portion of that eventful day, being relieved about one o'clock by Colonel (afterwards Major-General) Francis Hepburn, on whom the memorable defence of the orchard afterwards mainly devolved.

"The enemy collected his army, with the exception of the 3rd Corps, which had been sent to observe Marshal Blucher, on a range of heights in our front, in the course of the night of the 17th and yesterday morning," says the great Duke in his dispatch to Earl Bathurst; "and, at about ten o'clock, he commenced a furious attack upon our post of Hougomont. I had occupied that post with a detachment of General Byng's brigade of Guards, which was in position in its rear; and it was for some time under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Macdonell, and afterwards of Colonel Home, and I am happy to add that it was maintained throughout the day with the utmost gallantry by these brave troops, notwithstanding the repeated efforts of large bodies of the enemy to obtain possession of it. It gives me the greatest satisfaction," continues the dispatch, "to assure