Meanwhile the detachments which had been called in from the marine service on board the “St George,” the “Egmont,” the “Gibraltar,” the “Monarch,” the “Stately,” and the “Reunion,” with a number of recruits obtained chiefly from among the Dutch sailors, who had become prisoners of war, were enrolled as a second battalion. Encamped with the army assembled on Shirley Common, this battalion was, in 1795, moved to the coast, and embarked on board the “Boddington” and the “Belfast.” The fleet, containing the army, which amounted to nearly 26,000 fighting men, consisted of about 300 sail. A variety of accidents arose to detain the expedition, and ultimately caught in a tempest, the vast armament was broken or dispersed. In the confusion which ensued, the “Boddington,” with part of the Twenty-fifth on board, her officers having opened the sealed orders, and found the West Indies to be the destination of the expedition, encountering many perils, at length reached Barbadoes in safety; whilst the “Belfast,” with the remainder of the regiment, was captured by a French corvette, the “Decius,” twenty-four guns. The unfortunate prisoners were treated most cruelly, and the more so that a conspiracy to rise upon their captors had been divulged by one of the Dutchmen who had recently joined the regiment. Landed at St Martin’s, they were afterwards removed to the common gaol at Guadaloupe, during the passage to which the men of the regiment rose against and overpowered the crew of one of the transports, and succeeded in escaping to the British island of Grenada, where they joined their comrades of the first battalion who still survived. The officers remaining prisoners were inhumanly treated, and only released by exchange, after enduring for ten months the miseries of confinement on board the prison hulk “Albion”—a vessel captured from the British. On their passage to rejoin the regiment which had returned home, calling at the island of St Christopher, they had the satisfaction of witnessing the captain and crew of the “Decius” in irons as prisoners. Unhappily this “chapter of accidents” had not yet ended. On the homeward voyage the transports, under convoy of the “Ariadne” frigate, encountered so severe a tempest that several foundered—the frigate was under the necessity of throwing her guns overboard; the “Bee” transport, shifting her ballast, was cast on her beam ends, and was only saved by a marvel of mercy—saved from the storm, to become the prey of a French privateer. Lauded as prisoners in France, the officers were sent on their parole into Brittany, until regularly exchanged. On returning, the survivors rejoined the relics of the regiment in Plymouth lines in 1797. Whilst in garrison here, along with the Second and Twenty-ninth Foot, and the Down Militia, the regiment was exposed to the villany of an evil-disposed and disaffected class—revolutionary incendiaries—the creatures of an iniquitous delusion, in whose soul the God-like emotion of patriotism