|I had scarcely landed when I received the unwelcome intelligence that General ----------, to whose staff I had been appointed, had been wounded on the retreat from Burgos, and in consequence obliged to resign his command, and return to England invalided. I felt the disappointment severely--but as the corps that I had previously exchanged into was at Valencia, with the Anglo-Sicilian army there collected, much as I should have desired “to follow to the field” the victor of Salamanca, I determined to join my regiment without delay, and “flesh my maiden sword” the ensuing campaign, under the colours of the old and honourable Twenty-seventh. Ignorant of the route by which I could cross the country to the eastern coast of Spain, and anxious to see that gallant army under whose conquering banners I had anticipated a glorious opening to my career in arms, after a three days’ sojourn in Lisbon, I left that city of filth and splendour in company with half a dozen officers _en route_ to join their respective battalions--some, in return from leave--and others, like myself, to smell powder for the first time. A captain of an Irish regiment was of the party. He was a gay, honest-hearted, blundering countryman; and from the graphic sketches D’Arcy gwe me on the road of all attached to the battalion I was about to join, from the junior Ensign of sixteen, to the old stiff-backed Colonel of sixty, I became so familiar with the corps, that I almost fancied at first sight I could have placed my hand on every head, and identified the individual--and, on the evening when we entered the encampment of the regiment, I felt perfectly at home, and entered the rude mess-room as much at ease, as if, after a temporary absence, I was merely returning to join some old acquaintances.