In the summer of 1810, General Murat assembled upwards of one hundred heavy gun-boats, a number of others more lightly armed, and about four hundred transport-boats, and brought thirty thousand troops to the coast of Calabria for the purpose of invading Sicily. The ROYAL NORTH BRITISH FUSILIERS were employed on the coast watching the approach of the enemy, and were at the alarm-post, under arms, every morning, two hours before daylight, for several months. During a dark night between the 17th and 18th of September, four thousand men, under General Cavaignac, made good their passage, and commenced landing about seven miles to the southward of Messina. The alarm being given, the TWENTY-FIRST regiment, commanded by Lieut.-Colonel Adam (now General the Right Honorable Sir Frederick Adam, G.C.B., Colonel of the TWENTY-FIRST ROYAL NORTH BRITISH FUSILIERS), hurried to the spot, accompanied by two field-pieces which were attached to the regiment, and prevented several of the boats from reaching the shore: as the boats were retiring, a few of them were sunk by the fire of the field-pieces. The regiment next turned towards that portion of the enemy which had landed, and had taken post on two hills. The flankers were thrown out, and a fire of musketry was kept up until daylight, when the enemy, being cut off from the boats and surrounded, surrendered prisoners of war, delivering up one stand of colours. The prisoners, amounting to about one thousand officers and soldiers, were marched to Messina. This repulse, with the destruction of many of the enemy's gun-boats, by the British and Sicilian flotillas, disconcerted the plans of Murat, and no further attempts were made against Sicily. [Sidenote: 1811] In September, 1811, the second battalion embarked from Belfast for Scotland; and in this year it sent a strong detachment, with a number of volunteers from the militia, to Sicily, which increased the strength of the first battalion to twelve hundred rank and file. [Sidenote: 1812] Meanwhile the British army, commanded by Lord Wellington, now Field-Marshal the DUKE OF WELLINGTON, was fighting the battle of Spanish and Portuguese independence in the Peninsula; and in November, 1812, the grenadier company of the TWENTY-FIRST FUSILIERS proceeded, with the grenadier battalion, to the eastern coast of Spain, to take part in the war. It arrived at Alicant, on the 2nd of December; but circumstances occurred soon afterwards, which occasioned its return to Sicily, where it arrived in the spring of 1813. [Sidenote: 1813] Two companies proceeded, in 1813, to the island of Ponza; and in the same year, a strong detachment, commanded by Captain Renny, joined from the second battalion. [Sidenote: 1814]