the captives through the principal streets of the city for seven hours; exposed, moreover, to indignities of the grossest kind—“These,” said they, “are our British _friends_, who came from their ships to kill us and our children.” The Pacha, however, sincerely sympathising, behaved with great kindness, and did his utmost to screen the prisoners from the blind wrath of the public, expressing his deep regret that Britain should have become so involved in war with his Government, which had been long accustomed to regard the British as friends and allies—never as foes. In consequence of the disaster at El Hamet, the siege of Rosetta was abandoned, and our army, retreating to Alexandria, thence negotiated for the release of the prisoners, and agreeing to evacuate Egypt, returned to Sicily. Of the captives thus released, a _drummer_ of the Seventy-eighth, by name Macleod, who had occasionally assisted the surgeon of the regiment in applying poultices, etc., choosing to remain behind in Cairo, by a somewhat extraordinary metamorphosis, set up for a _physician_, and by consummate assurance attained a large practice and acquired a larger fortune. From Sicily the battalion was removed to Lisbon, and thereafter ordered home to England, where it arrived in 1808. Subsequently transferred to Scotland to recruit, it forwarded large detachments of very superior volunteers from its ranks to the first battalion, then fighting in India. In 1809 a corps of 370 men was battalionized under the Hon. Lieutenant-Colonel Cochrane, and embarked for Zealand, where it shared the disasters of the Walcheren expedition, afterward returning to the Isle of Wight. In 1813, as a small corps of 400 Highlanders, the second battalion of the Seventy-eighth joined the army of Lieutenant-General Sir Thomas Graham, afterwards Lord Lynedoch, which endeavoured to expel the French from Holland. On the 13th January, with the second battalion of the Twenty-fifth and the Thirty-third regiments, it encountered the enemy at Merexem, where it behaved with signal gallantry—an immediate charge with the bayonet by the Seventy-eighth, ordered by Lieutenant-Colonel Lindsay, decided the contest. The enemy was beaten with great slaughter. At this period the juvenility of the battalion was as remarkable as its valour—only 43 of its soldiers exceeding twenty-two years of age. The battalion remained in the Netherlands until after the battle of Waterloo, but stationed at Nieuport, was deprived of the privilege of being present on that memorable and glorious field. Nevertheless, it added to its good name by its excellent conduct, becoming peculiarly endeared to the Belgians, who spoke of the Highlanders as being “kind, as well as brave;” “Enfans de la famille;” “Lions in the field and lambs in the house”—so much so, that the citizens of Brussels petitioned the mayor to request the General-in-Chief to allow the Seventy-eighth to remain in garrison in that capital.