Previously to the arrival of the THIRTY-FIRST regiment, the French had assembled a force in Calabria for the invasion of Sicily, and Major-General Stuart, commanding the British troops in that island, formed the design of cutting off the French division under General Regnier; the result was the battle of _Maida_, where a victory was gained by the British troops on the 4th of July. Major-General Stuart being sensible that he could not, with his small force, maintain himself in Calabria, recrossed the straits of Messina and returned to Sicily. For this victory Major-General John Stuart received the dignity of Knight of the Bath, the thanks of Parliament, and was created Count of Maida by the King of the Two Sicilies. [Sidenote: 1807] Admiral Sir John Duckworth having failed in his coercive mission to detach Turkey from the interests of France, Great Britain determined to seize upon Egypt, as a check to any fresh demonstration by the French against the British possessions in the East Indies. An armament accordingly sailed from Melazzo, on the coast of Sicily, in February, 1807, under the command of Major-General Alexander Mackenzie Fraser, Colonel of the seventy-eighth regiment, and landed at Aboukir on the 18th of March. On the 21st of March, Alexandria was occupied by the British troops, and it is a singular coincidence that it was the anniversary of the battle fought near there in the year 1801, when the gallant General Sir Ralph Abercromby received the wound which terminated his honorable career. On the 27th of March a force of fifteen hundred men, of which the THIRTY-FIRST regiment formed part, was detached under the command of Major-General Wauchope to Rosetta. The troops arrived before the city on the 31st of March, and not having been impeded in their progress to the environs, entered the place. The THIRTY-FIRST regiment marched into Rosetta, while the grenadier battalion occupied a high sandy mound without the city. Rosetta is situated upon a slight eminence, commanding a view of the river Nile and the fertile lands of the Delta; the streets are somewhat wider than the generality of Egyptian towns, and planted here and there with trees. The houses are high, the lower half of each being a dead wall, with a small door, leading into a narrow passage, well secured with bolts and bars of iron. The chambers are above, with trelliced windows projecting over the streets. The Turks had garrisoned their houses, and remaining quiet, allowed the British to continue their march until some way into the town, when through the loop-holes they had constructed on purpose, and their trelliced windows, a destructive and unexpected fire was opened upon the column. The troops, although placed in a most trying and perilous situation, behaved extremely well, and after having suffered very materially in killed and wounded, retired to Aboukir, from whence they returned to Alexandria.