From these extracts, it will be seen that the first object of this much-abused Expedition was completely effected, and Walcheren rendered innocuous, as a means of menacing England. That this was mainly owing to the energy and perseverance of the troops has, it is hoped, also been made apparent. Alas! that the story of this Expedition, as of so many others from England, would be incomplete without the mention of failures in the supply departments of the army. Three months after the fall of Flushing, the troops were [Sidenote: Dated Flushing, 14 Nov. 1809.] still suffering from want of necessary comforts. “It will be doing us a very great favour,” wrote Major Dixon, “if you can by any means expedite the arrival of the _bedding_. It is now miserably cold, and I am convinced that much of our indisposition arises from the want of necessary accommodation and comfort. By a letter from the Honourable Board (two packets ago) I expected bedding for the whole of the Ordnance Department, but nothing of the kind has yet appeared.” From complaints like these the reader cannot fail to suspect that much of the exaggerated abuse of the climate of Walcheren was employed to shield those departments, whose members, in this as in other wars, have evinced a belief that the army exists for them, not they for the army. It only remains to tell the singular story, whose conclusion has affected the regimental privileges of the Royal Artillery from the fall of Flushing to this day. Mention has been made several times in this work of a custom, which placed the bells of a captured city, or an equivalent, at the disposal of the commanding officer of the Artillery of the besieging force. The privilege--as the reader will remember--had been exercised so recently as at the siege of Copenhagen. After the surrender of Flushing, General Macleod preferred [Sidenote: Lieut.-Col. Mosheim to Lieut.-Colonel Wood, 4/9/1809.] the usual claim. The Mayor and Corporation replied through the Commandant that they acknowledged with due respect a right established by custom immemorial that the bells belonged to the commanding officer of the Royal Artillery, if he thought proper to enforce his claim, but that they were persuaded he would grant consideration to their already sufficiently distressed condition, and not deprive the unfortunate town of its bells, which they would be as incapable of replacing, as they felt unable to tender any compensation for them. On the following day, General Macleod replied that, in consideration of the destruction brought upon the town of Flushing by the system of defence which the French General had thought proper to adopt, he had no wish to add to the misery of the inhabitants by seizing the bells, or by demanding a strict compensation to the full amount of their value. In consenting, however, to sacrifice to a great extent his own rights and pretensions, he could not, he said, in any degree compromise those of the Corps. He must, therefore, demand a