In the latter end of December, we marched to Flushing, to embark, as the island was to be evacuated by the British troops. Here we witnessed the finishing stroke of destruction given to that unhappy town. Every thing that could be rendered useful to the fortification was destroyed, the fine arsenal was set on fire, the guns spiked, bridges broken, and docks demolished, before the eyes of the sorrowful townspeople. The burning of the arsenal was a grand and melancholy spectacle—it illuminated the whole atmosphere, and so strong was the heat reflected upon the town by it, that the inhabitants were necessitated to use water-engines against their various dwellings, to prevent a general conflagration. A terrific hurricane soon followed this, and injured our fleet of transports off Flushing excessively: the crews of two were lost. This delayed us a few days longer. At length the whole of our forces were embarked, and we sailed on the 23rd of December from the island, in which eleven thousand of our gallant comrades had been consigned to the grave. It was one of the most black, rainy, and foggy mornings that ever hung over the moist flats of Holland, when we weighed anchor, and our departure was _saluted_ from the opposite shore, Cadsand, with thirty-six pound shot, which (although from the distance we kept, it could not do much injury) the enemy, as if in exultation, sent us as a parting compliment: one shot unluckily took effect, and killed a sergeant of the 71st. We were but a short time at sea; for on Christmas-day we landed at Deal; very different beings as to dress, &c., to what we were when we left that port a few months before. Thus ended the Walcheren Expedition. It was my first campaign in the service, and although attended with some trouble, and a great deal of danger, I remember even its worst passages with pleasure; for they were associated with my morning of life, and as such have become subjects of sweet recollection to me now. My troubles, on the whole, were nearly counterbalanced by gentle contingencies. The life of a campaigner would be a dreary picture indeed, if some relief were not thrown into it by the light of the heart: and seldom, thank Heaven! has there occurred a scene in my military panorama where I could not find a gleam. Whence comes the brightest? From woman's eyes. A soldier is nothing without his lass—his life reads badly—cold, dull, and monotonous. But this, gentle reader, was not my case; enthusiastic, imaginative, ready to adore every thing sentimental, or romantic, how could I avoid the flowery way? I _did_ fall in love—as every young officer should do, who knows his duty; and the first decided symptom of my derangement, was the following poetical fit which seized me as soon as I found I was no more in Walcheren.