These opinions are, however, mere matter of fancy. Some of our best regiments were English, and one, to please me, decidedly the finest in the Peninsular army, the 43rd, was principally composed of Englishmen. Then there was that first-rate battle regiment, the 45th, a parcel of Nottingham weavers, whose sedentary habits would lead you to suppose they could not be prime marchers; but the contrary was the fact, and they marched to the full as well as my own corps, which were all Irish save three or four. But if it come to a hard tug, and that we had neither rations nor shoes, then, indeed, the Connaught Rangers would be in their element, and outmarch almost any battalion in the service; and for this plain reason, that scarcely one of them wore many pairs of shoes prior to the date of his enlistment, and as to the rations (the most part of them at all events), a dozen times had been in all probability the _outside_ of their acquaintance with such delicacies. But the grand secret in a good marching, good fighting, or loyal regiment, one not given to a habit of deserting, is being _well commanded_; because the finest body of men may be ruined, the efforts of the bravest regiment paralysed, and the best disposed corps become marauders and deserters, from having an inefficient man at their head. Colonel Alexander Wallace, who commanded us for so many years, and under whom the regiment repeatedly covered itself with glory, was the very chief we wanted. Although a Scotchman himself, he was intimately acquainted with the sort of men he had under him, and he dealt with them and addressed their feelings in a way that was peculiar to himself and suited to them. In action he was the same as on parade, and in either case he was as he should be. If we were placed (as we often were) in any critical situation, he would explain to the soldiers what he expected them to do; if in danger of being charged by cavalry he would say, “Mind the square; you know I often told you that if ever you had to form it from line, in face of an enemy, you’d be in a d—--d ugly way, and have plenty of noise about you; mind the tellings off, and don’t give the _false touch_ to your right or left hand man; for by G—d, if you are once broken, you’ll be running here and there like a parcel of _frightened pullets_!” But Colonel Wallace was out of his place as a mere commander of a regiment; he was eminently calculated to head a division, because he not only possessed that intrepidity of mind which would brave any danger, but genius to discover the means of overcoming it. It was by his foresight that our brave companions, the 45th, were sustained in their unequal contest with Reynier’s division at Busaco; and Lord Wellington, who saw and fully appreciated the manœuvre, rode up to the 88th Regiment, and seizing Colonel Wallace by the hand, said: “Upon my honour, Wallace, I never witnessed a more gallant charge than that just now made by your regiment.” The dead and wounded of the 2nd