At Bayonne the last blow of the war was struck; for as soon as the news of Napoleon’s abdication had arrived, hostilities ceased. In May the five companies at Bayonne and Toulouse marched from their respective cantonments to Blanquefort and Bordeaux, where they were encamped for a few weeks awaiting the general evacuation of the country. An expedition being ordered to proceed to North America, the second company fourth battalion embarked with it on the 27th May; and the other four companies, viz., the seventh of the first battalion and the second, seventh, and eighth of the second battalion, sailed from Poulliac on the 22nd June, and landed at Portsmouth the 10th and 14th July, leaving fifty-five men sick in France. The casualties in these companies for the half year were thirty deaths and one missing. The sixth company second battalion was removed to Italy in April. The sixth company first battalion from Cadiz, and the fifth company second battalion from St. Sebastian, sailed from Spain the latter end of August, and arrived at Woolwich early in September. These two companies were with the last troops which left the Peninsula after the close of the war. The fourth company second battalion, counting eighty-two men, with Sub-Lieutenant T. Adamson under Captain R. Thomson, left Margate with the expedition under Sir Thomas Graham, and landed at Williamstadt the 18th December, 1813. There the company suffered loss by the accidental burning of the barracks in which it was quartered. After removing the stores from the shipping, parties were employed in preparing fascines and gabions, in bridge-making, constructing a landing place of faggots for the disembarkation of the cavalry, and in removing the platforms and heavy mortars from the ramparts at Williamstadt for carriage to Merxam. These services being accomplished, the company was distributed to Klundert, Groat Zundert, Zandaarbuiten, Tholen, Steenbergen, and Fort Frederic near Lille. Among other duties the detachment at Zandaarbuiten formed, in a very expeditious manner, a bridge of country-boats over the river Maerk under two young lieutenants of engineers, which served for the conveyance of the heaviest artillery. The boats were of different shapes and sizes, collected for the occasion, and the materials for the superstructure were of irregular scantling, partly collected in the neighbourhood and partly felled on the spot.[211] At Tholen a corporal and eight men under Lieutenant Eyre, R.E., attached to the Prussians, built a battery on the bank of the river for the protection of a flying bridge; and at Fort Frederic a party restored a battery for two guns, which afterwards held an unequal contest with a French eighty-four gun ship, and prevented her proceeding to Bergen-op-Zoom with provisions. No less than forty-one, including the commander, were killed and wounded on board the man-of-war, while the casualties at the battery only amounted to one killed and two wounded. ----- Footnote 211: