In the early part of the succeeding month of May, the second battalion received their route for Reading Street, in Kent, where we got into quarters after a few days hard marching. The temporary barracks which we occupied were situated in the centre of a highly improved country, about three miles from the small town of Tenterden. The weather being delightful at this pleasant season, and our duty not being extremely severe, the time passed in a manner quite in unison with our wishes, and without any greater degree of suffering than what occasionally arose from the hardship incident to a night campaign, upon a Bacchanalian expedition. As the invitations to the feast were but "few and far between," the dangers to be encountered on this service were by no means numerous or important. Deprived by our retired circumstances of any extensive intercourse with the "gay and lively throng," we were getting somewhat rusticated, and might in time have become very quiet and harmless animals, had we been permitted so to remain. But our retirement was much too easy a mode of existence for gentlemen of the sword, and all our dreams of luxury and peace were soon disturbed, by a sudden order from the higher powers, for several of our officers and non-commissioned officers to proceed with the utmost rapidity to the Isle of Wight, in order to join a battalion of detachments, which was then forming at Albany Barracks, and which was destined to compose a portion of the expedition under the Earl of Chatham. Being included in the number allotted for this service, I accompanied the following officers, who commenced their march for Portsmouth, on Sunday the 25th of June, 1809: Captain Henry Montgomery, Captain Edward Atkins, Lieutenant William Turner, Lieutenant Richard Jones, and Lieutenant James Thomas. With high glee, and an elastic tone of spirits, we entered upon our journey, equipped and fitted out in a most singular manner, for, such was the speed demanded on this pressing occasion, that every kind of conveyance, inclusive of coach, caravan, gig, and fish cart, was put in requisition for the more hasty removal of our martial band. Although there was something bordering on the ludicrous in the mode of our turn out, we cut, nevertheless, a most formidable and imposing figure.