The morning of the battle was one of the most beautiful and serene I ever beheld, even in Italy. As the curtain of night was drawn aside, and the bright beams of morning lighted up the giant masses of the Apennines, the green rice-fields, and luxuriant vineyards; white-walled towns and villages, solitary convents and feudal castles, waving woods, and the indentations of the rocky coast, all became tinted with their most pleasing hues. But the surpassing splendour of the sun—in whose joyous effulgence the whole glorious landscape seemed palpitating with delight—the clearness of the atmosphere, and the deep blue of the wondrous vault above us, were all forgotten, or unheeded: we thought only of the foe in position before us; while the dropping fire from our flankers, who had commenced skirmishing with the French tirailleurs, kept us keenly alive to the desperate work which had to be accomplished ere the sun sank below the sea. When that hour came, might I be alive to behold it? How many an eye that looked on its glorious rising, would then be closed for ever! General Regnier’s troops were encamped below Maida, on the face of a thickly-wooded hill, which sloped into the plain of St. Eufemio. The Amato, a river which, though fordable, has very muddy and marshy banks, ran along the front of his line, while his flanks were strengthened and defended by groves of laurel bushes, and a thick impervious underwood, which he had filled with scattered light troops. Cavaliére Castagno by his influence among the peasantry, obtained hourly any intelligence we required; and just before the battle begun, he conveyed to me, for the general’s information, the unpleasing tidings, that Monteleone’s corps, to the number of three thousand men, were now moving into position on the French right. General Regnier was now at the head of eight thousand bayonets, while we had little more than half that number, exclusive of the Calabrians, on whom, as yet, we could not rely much in the field; and they were, consequently, to form a corps of reserve: much to the annoyance of the gallant Santugo and his friends. We marched in close column of subdivisions, parallel with the sea-shore, until we had nearly turned Regnier’s left; and as our movements were all made in a spacious plain, with the morning sun glaring on our serried ranks and burnished arms, he had an excellent view of our numbers and intentions. Had Regnier quietly maintained his position on the hill, we would soon have turned it altogether, and thus placed him between us and the sea; where Sir Sydney’s squadron lay, broadside to the shore, with ports open and guns double shotted. To us the movement was full of peril: our retreat might be cut off; while, in consequence of the smallness of our force, the difficulties of access, and the natural strength of the ridge on which the enemy was posted, we should have found it no easy task to drive him back.