Peace lasted for just fourteen months; and then in May 1803 England took the initiative and declared war against France. On the 1st of that month the Seventeenth embarked from Liverpool for Ireland. It met with its usual luck at sea on the passage, the transports being dispersed by a gale which drove them into various ports on the East Coast, and permitted but one immediately to reach its destination at Dublin. [Sidenote: 1804.] In the course of the following year the establishment was again augmented to ten troops, four of which joined the camp at the Curragh, where a large force was assembled under the command of Lord Cathcart. This Lord Cathcart, let us remember, was an officer of the Seventeenth during the American War; he is the same man who commanded the expedition against Copenhagen in 1807, when Sir Arthur Wellesley himself served under him. [Sidenote: 1805.] The following year is memorable for the formation of Napoleon’s camp of invasion at Boulogne. Napoleon’s hopes having been shattered by Nelson’s victory at Trafalgar (12th October), he broke up the camp and marched away to the campaign of Ulm and Austerlitz. Previous to these two great disasters there had been some idea of a diversion to be made by an English army on the Continent; and in September the Seventeenth received orders to prepare for foreign service as part of this force. But Austerlitz effectually smothered this design. In December the regiment was moved back to England, and spent Christmas day on the passage, the first of four successive Christmas days that it was destined to celebrate on the sea. [Sidenote: 1806.] The year 1806 opened gloomily with the death of William Pitt, the great man whose indomitable spirit had carried England through the first and worse half of the tremendous contest against France. The want of his guiding hand was soon to be badly felt. The month of March brought a nearer occasion of mourning to the Seventeenth. On the 20th there died at the Plantation, Guisbrough, in Yorkshire, General John Hale, the father of the regiment. He had been promoted Major-General in 1772, Lieutenant-General in 1777, and General in 1793, and, it seems, had settled down to end his days among his wife’s people. In his long life of seventy-eight years he had seen the rise of William Pitt, “the terrible cornet of horse,” and the death of his son William Pitt, “the pilot who weathered the storm.” He left behind him seventeen children and the Seventeenth Light Dragoons. Just about this time unfavourable reports of the regiment found their way to headquarters, insomuch [Sidenote: April.] that a general was sent down to Northampton to inspect it. Rather to his surprise this officer found that, so far from being unfit for active service, the regiment was the best in the matter of men and horses, drill and equipment, that he had seen. He reported accordingly to headquarters, with results that were speedily apparent.