AGINCOURT.--Fought on the 25th of October, 1415, between the English and French. When all his preparations were completed, King Henry V embarked at Southampton with a gallant army of 30,000 men, and landing at the mouth of the river Seine, invested the town of Harfleur. After a brave resistance of five months’ duration, the town surrendered; the inhabitants were expelled like those of Calais, and an English garrison occupied it. To his mortification, Henry, at the end of the siege, found his army no longer in a condition for active operations; for it had suffered so severely from dysentery, that when the sick and wounded had been sent home, it did not count more than one half of its original number. In spite however, of the remonstrances of his council, Henry resolved to march with his diminished force to Calais. He reached unopposed the ford by which Edward III had crossed the Somme, but found it secured by lines of palisades, behind which troops were posted. All the other fords were secured in like manner, and the bridges were broken. At length finding a ford unguarded, the English passed over. The constable of France, who commanded the French army, fell back towards Calais, and having received orders from his court to fight without delay, he sent heralds to King Henry to ask which way he intended to march. Henry replied, by that which led straight to Calais, and dismissed the heralds with a present of 100 crowns. As the English were advancing, the Duke of York, having ascended an eminence, descried the masses of the enemy. The troops were instantly formed in line of battle, but the French would not advance to attack them, the experience of Cressy and Poitiers having inspired them with a dread of the cloth-yard arrows of the English. But as their army presented an array of 50,000 horsemen, they had no doubt whatever of the victory; and though the night was dark and rainy, they assembled round their banners revelling and discussing the events of the coming day; and such was their confidence that they even fixed the ransoms of King Henry and his barons. English, on the contrary, made their wills, and passed the night in devotion. Sickness, famine, and the smallness of their numbers, depressed their spirits; but their courage rose when they thought on Cressy and other victories, and on the gallant spirit of their king. Henry himself visited all their quarters, and he ordered bands of music to play all through the night to cheer their drooping spirits.