injure their supposed friends. When undeceived, a vigorous fire warmly hailed the enemy, and drove back the Swiss with great slaughter. Beaten thus in every quarter, General Regnier proposed, as a last resource, to try the effect of a flank attack upon the Twenty-seventh regiment. Providentially, the Twentieth regiment arriving on the field at this moment, hastened to sustain their comrades, and by their unexpected appearance so discouraged the foe, that the attack, languidly undertaken, was speedily given over. The French now gave way at all points, and retreated precipitately, so swiftly, that without cavalry they could not be overtaken—General Regnier falling a prisoner into our hands. General Stuart had at first been grievously disappointed in the boyish appearance of the Seventy-eighth, 600 of whom were under twenty-one years of age; but now felt constrained to confess their gallant conduct unsurpassed; having vanquished the veteran troops of France, although fighting under great disadvantages in the front line of this their maiden engagement. Unfortunately, the British, unsupported, were unable to do more than destroy the enemy’s arsenals and magazines at Monte Leon, ere prudence counselled their return to Sicily. Insignificant in itself, the result of the battle of Maida exerted an important influence over Europe. Although the numbers respectively engaged were small, still—occurring at a time and in circumstances when European liberty groaned in chains, and all the blessings which belonged to it seemed to be eclipsed in the dark night of tyranny, and when the sovereigns of the Continent had submitted to the imperious yoke of Bounaparte, when the friendly light of hope, flickering, seemed to die out—the battle and the victory of Maida revived the drooping spirit of Freedom, restored to new life the palsied pulse of Europe, and bade her many peoples awake from the stupor of terror which the shackles of an iron despotism and the cruel spoilings of rapacious might had imposed! It required years of sore suffering and desperate struggling ere the monster which so preyed upon the vitals of liberty could be shaken off; and, emancipated from the oppressor’s grasp, the nations one by one once more breathed somewhat of the blessed air of freedom.