I immediately set to work and got hand-bills printed, and established recruiting parties at Westminster, the Borough, and Tower Hill, &c., and appointed about half a dozen sergeants and corporals, who were immediately supplied with green clothing. I next proceeded to Chatham and Gravesend, and stationed recruiting parties there also; and in the short space of two months we raised five hundred men. A motley group I enlisted, from the sons of peers, down even to dustmen, including doctors, lawyers, parsons’ clerks, and all the trades necessary to form a national hive of cunning, craft and industry. I had an honourable for a sergeant (the Honourable A. Curzon), a doctor for a corporal (A. M. Hart), the former of whom was afterwards appointed Lieutenant. These recruits I sent in small detachments on board the ‘Swiftsure,’ then lying at Portsmouth, the head-quarters of the regiment, appointing one sergeant and one corporal to every sixteen privates. In the beginning of September 1835, I received a letter from Baron de Rottenburgh, our Colonel, that the regiment was about to start for Spain, wishing me to make as much haste as possible in joining. A few days after this I embarked from Gravesend, with nearly one hundred more men for the Rifles, on board the ‘London Merchant’ steamer, and arrived at Portsmouth the following day; but, unfortunately, the whole of the regiment had already sailed for Spain; after paying the men their bounty of two pounds each, the next morning we sailed also. After a very pleasant voyage through the Bay of Biscay, about the middle of September, we came in sight of the Spanish coast; at first the eye was struck with the wild and magnificent sweep of the Pyrenean mountains, which to those unaccustomed to such scenery must be truly sublime. Through our glasses we could distinctly perceive the various little towns that dotted here and there the different inlets of the bay, and which had a very peculiar and wild appearance. But as we approached the land we could plainly discern, marching up the mountain sides, small bodies of soldiers which many on board mistook for the troops of Don Carlos, but on closer inspection we discerned to be the Queen’s. Brigadier-General Evans, who was on board, having determined to land here, the necessary preparations were being made, when, to our surprise a vessel hove in sight, bearing the remainder of the Rifles from Santander to Bilboa. They were fully equipped with rifle and green clothing, and disembarked near Portugaletta, while we with the recruits landed also.