Colonel Drummond was everything that could be required in a soldier; brave, generous, open-hearted and good natured, he added to all these the talent of a first-rate tactitian; and if at times eccentricities broke out through all these, any one who knew him must have agreed with his clansman, and I believe kinsman, Sir Gordon Drummond, that "all these eccentricities would one day mellow down into sound common sense, and that Keltie would be an honor to the service." Alas! his prophecy was destined never to be fulfilled--that was his last campaign, and he fell in it as a brave man and a soldier would wish to fall, a death far less to be pitied than envied. But I am anticipating. We were divided into three brigades--let not the old soldier suppose that these were such brigades as are generally in the army. Our force never amounted to 9,000 men, including artillery, cavalry and militia, and these took their tour of piquet duty in rotation, so that we had one day of duty, were relieved the next, and on the fourth again took our turn. This, all things considered, especially alarms and skirmishes, when we all turned out, was pretty hard work, but we were in high spirits, and it never affected us. One of the great drawbacks of the service in Canada was that we got the rubbish of every department in the army. Any man whom The Duke deemed unfit for the Peninsula was considered as quite good enough for the Canadian market, and in nothing was this more conspicuous than in our Engineer Department. Without the semblance of a battering train, it was deemed expedient to besiege Fort Erie, and the ground was occupied, parties sent in advance, and batteries ordered to be constructed. Our first essay in this line was a battery on the main road leading to the Fort, which was to breach the strong stone building in the centre of it, on which were mounted, if I recollect rightly, one iron 24-pounder, one 18-pounder and two brass field 24-pounders. I have never seen before or since, any like them, but they were of the time of George II., and were admirable guns in the field, though not quite the best that could be used for breaching the wall of a fort. A brass and an iron mortar were afterwards added to this most efficient battering train; the latter, however, having no bed, was placed in one of oak, which it split almost as often as it was fired. After much skirmishing with the enemy and the covering parties, the battery was at last opened, and gentle reader! if ever you saw what is termed hopping bowling at cricket you may have some idea how our fire operated. I very much doubt if one shot in ten reached the rampart at all, and the fortunate exceptions that struck the stone building at which they were aimed, rebounded from its sides as innocuous as tennis balls.