On the 25th of January, 1811, the QUEEN'S ROYAL embarked at Portsmouth, with the Thirty-sixth, Second Battalion of the Forty-third, Fifty-first, and Eighty-fifth regiments, to reinforce the British army in Portugal. The fleet, commanded by Sir Joseph Yorke, encountered contrary gales, which so prolonged the voyage, that the convoy did not reach its destination until the 2nd of March, when the regiment disembarked at Lisbon, and went into barracks in the castle. It was afterwards attached to the Sixth Division of the army, and engaged with it in the pursuit of the French army under Marshal Massena, who evacuated his position at Santarem, and commenced his retreat into Spain a few days after the arrival of the above re-inforcements. Many brilliant exploits were performed by the adverse armies during this retreat, and also in the subsequent operations on the eastern frontier of Portugal. The _Sixth_ Division was subsequently employed in the south, under Sir Thomas Graham, covering the siege of Badajoz, which was menaced by the French Marshal, but surrendered to the bold and superior tact of Lord Wellington in April, 1812. [Sidenote: 1812] When Lord Wellington advanced into Spain in 1812, and occupied _Salamanca_, the Sixth Division was quartered in that city, and charged with the siege of the three fortified convents, in which the enemy had left garrisons. In the unsuccessful attempt to carry one of these forts, (that called St. Vincente) by escalade, on the night of the 23rd of June, in which Major-General Bowes fell, the light company of the QUEEN'S lost Captain Sir George Colquhoun, Lieutenant Mathews, one serjeant, and six men killed, and was otherwise so reduced, that it was found necessary next day to draft ten men from each battalion company to complete it. After the reduction of these forts, the _St. Caetano_ and _La Mercea_ by storm, and _St. Vincente_ by capitulation, the Sixth Division joined the army in the advance to Toro, and took part in the several movements which preceded and led to the battle of Salamanca.