enemy to interrupt them were unavailing. The army, therefore, continued to retreat till it reached Bremen on the 28th of March, where it was joined by the two flank battalions. At this place, head-quarters and the brigade of Guards were stationed.

From their manner of living, and the abundant supplies furnished to British troops by the commissariat department, they are seldom exposed to great privations. But when the want of food or clothing is experienced as it was in this campaign, or when the men, without sufficient shelter, are subject to hardships from the inclemency of the seasons, they generally bear those evils in a manner that evinces the superiority of the British soldier. The troops having behaved, throughout the campaigns of 1793 and 1794, with a spirit that did them infinite credit, and especially during the hardships of this arduous retreat, finally embarked on board transports at the mouths of the Elbe and the Weser, and returned to England.

In 1799 the Austrians again went to war with France, and were joined by the Russians; and many bloody engagements took place in the north of Italy and Switzerland. To favour the operations of the allies, a British army under Sir Ralph Abercromby, including a brigade of Guards under Major-General Burrard, was sent to Holland it landed at the Helder, and, being joined by a Russian force, the command was taken by the Duke of York. The allied troops defeated the French and Dutch in several engagements; but the campaign of 1799, like those of 1793, 1794, and 1795, in the Low Countries, produced no favourable effect upon the general results of the war. The troops maintained their high character for gallantry, and the Guards distinguished themselves on several occasions; but the issue of the whole was a determination to withdraw from a country where not a man took up arms in favour of the house of Orange. It would have been dangerous to attempt to re-embark in face of the French army; but, on the other hand, the allies, concentrated in their intrenchments within the Helder

Point, had it in their power to cut the dykes, which would devastate the country. A convention was therefore signed on the 18th of October, which provided that the British and Russian army should embark as soon as possible, without committing any injury; and that eight thousand French and Dutch prisoners of war, then detained in England, should be restored unconditionally to. their respective countries.

But a short space, as usual, was given to the Guards for relaxation, in their native land: a brigade, under Major-General Ludlow, having, towards the end of the year 1800, joined the army in the Mediterranean, under Sir Ralph Abercromby. This expedition, after remaining some time, on the coast of Asia Minor, sailed, on the 22nd of February, 1801, from the Bay of Marmorice, with the daring purpose of wresting Egypt from the grasp of that celebrated Army of Italy, whose achieve ments in Europe had filled the civilised world with admi ration and astonishment.

The veteran comrades of Bonaparte, notwithstanding the losses they had sustained in their contests with the Turks and Mamelukes, were still greatly superior in number to the troops under Abercromby: they were, be sides, in possession of the resources of the country, and of all its strongholds, which had been fortified with the utmost care and skill. Eighteen months' occupation had inured the French to the burning suns of Egypt, which had become their adopted country, and they confidently prepared to repel the meditated attack. The British were strangers to that ungenial climate, and laboured under all the debilitating consequences of a protracted voyage, and long confinement on ship-board; but, without pausing to calculate disadvantages, they cheerfully proceeded to accomplish their country's errand.

On the 2nd of March, the whole fleet entered Aboukir Bay, the men-of-war bringing up. exactly in the place. where the battle of the Nile had been fought. The weather was unfavourable for a landing till the 8th,

F*

when, at two o'clock in the morning, the first division, consisting of the brigade of Guards under Major-General Ludlow, the Royals, the 54th, and some detachments, the whole being under the command of Major-General Coote, got into the boats and pushed off for their rendezvous, some hundred paces from the shore. Each flank was protected by light armed vessels, and several bombs and gun-brigs were moored with their broadsides to the beach. About two thousand French were advantageously posted on a ridge of sand-hills, with an elevated hillock in their centre, crowned with a battery of twelve pieces of cannon, which, as well as the guns of the castle of Aboukir, commanded the landing-place.

At nine o'clock, the signal was given, the boats started forward, while the men-of-war opened their batteries, and the bomb-vessels commenced throwing shells. The cannonade from the shipping was promptly returned by the French lines and the castle of Aboukir; while, under a furious discharge of shot and shells, and a torrent of grape and musketry, the regiments swept onwards towards the beach, the sailors struggling in noble emulation to be the first to reach the shore. Amidst the enthusiastic cheering of both services, the beach was at length gained, the soldiers jumped into the serf, formed as they cleared the water, and rushed boldly up the sand-hills, from which the enemy were speedily driven by the 23rd, the 40th, and the 42nd. The Guards were charged in the very act of landing by a body of French Dragoons; but the 58th regiment, which had already formed on the right, opened a fire, under cover of which the Guards were enabled to show front, when the enemy's cavalry were repulsed with heavy loss. The British had now possession of the heights, the remainder of the troops were landed, and the whole moving forward, the enemy retreated with the loss of four hundred men, that of the British amounting to seven hundred and forty.

On the 9th, the British troops were ordered to make a forward movement, the Guards leading the first column,