LOUIS LACY was born on the 11th January, 1775, at San Roque, a judicial partido and town of Andalusia, six miles distant from Gibraltar, after the capture of which it was founded, in 1704. His father, Major Lacy, dying while he was yet an infant, his mother married an officer of the Brussels Regiment of infantry in the service of Charles III. Young Louis, at the early age of nine years, entered this corps as a cadet, with his stepfather, and accompanied it to Puerto Rico, one of the Spanish West India islands, which was used then as a penal colony; it had been so for two centuries before. Thus a strong garrison was maintained at the capital, San Juan de Puerto Rico. As he grew older, Lacy showed so decided a vocation for the life of a soldier, that on his return to Spain, in 1789, Charles IV. removed him into the Ulster Regiment, among the gallant Irishmen of which his family name was held in high veneration; and in that battalion of exiles he obtained a company in 1794. In that year, when the French Republican forces invaded Spain, and commenced those operations which ended in the capture of Fontarabia and San Sebastian, Lacy was, with the regiment of Ulster, attached to the army of Catalonia, and fighting against them. The French were 40,000 strong, the Spaniards only 20,000. In Catalonia their progress was small; but in Guipuzcoa many places of importance fell into their hands; for the Court, languid and slow in all its warlike operations, opposed to them forces of inferior strength, and unhappily more accustomed to defeat than victory. Bellegarde was besieged by the French, who defeated the Spaniards before it; yet its commandant, the Marquis de Vallesantero, held out bravely. On the shores of the Bay of Biscay the arms of the invaders were successful; they made themselves masters of Passages, and the strong old castle of San Sebastian; they penetrated as far as Tolosa, assaulted Placentia, and besieged Pampeluna. Lacy is recorded as having personally and particularly signalized himself in battle against the French on the 5th of February, and the 5th, 16th, and 25th days of June, 1794; and to these circumstances their own military historians bear honourable testimony. Driven to extremities, Bellegarde surrendered on the 17th of September; and the brave Conde de la Union, after making a desperate and futile attempt to save it, fell in battle for his country, on the heights of Figueras, where 9000 Spaniards and 171 pieces of cannon were taken. The fall of Rosas followed, and the Court of Madrid trembled for the safety of the Catalonian coast. But the war was ended in the following year by the peace of Basle; and up to that period Lacy served, with the Regiment of Ulster, with honourable distinction, and attained great experience in the art of war--that arduous profession to which all the exiles of his family had so successfully and especially dedicated their lives.