from equipping or maintaining a powerful cavalry, and, in consequence, we find the armies of the Revolution at that time deficient in this branch of the service. Notwithstanding very the excellence of his troops, the Duke of York found his position untenable, with such a handful, against the overwhelming hosts of France, which were being daily augmented by a starving crowd which the Revolution had ruined, and so forced into the army as the only refuge in those unhappy times. The British, retreating into Germany, reached Bremen in 1795, whence the Scots Greys shortly thereafter returned to England.

Notwithstanding the continuous and bloody wars in which our country was engaged during the next twenty years, the Scots Greys were allowed to pine in quietude on home service, until the campaign of Waterloo called them to take the field.

In the meantime, we take opportunity to enumerate the series of colonels who successively commanded the regiment during this interval. The Earl of Eglinton, appointed in 1795, was succeeded by that brave and distinguished officer, Sir Ralph Abercromby, who fell in the arms of victory on the 28th of March, 1801, at the battle of Alexandria. On his death, the colonelcy was conferred on a no less distinguished officer, Sir David Dundas, who continued to command the regiment until 1813, when, exchanging into the King's Dragoon Guards, he was succeeded by the Marquis of Lothian. This nobleman dying in 1815, made way for an able and accomplished soldier, Sir James Stewart, who, retaining the colonelcy for the lengthened term of twenty-four years, lived to

be the oldest general and the oldest soldier, both in one, in the British army. In 1839, Sir William Keir Grant was appointed. colonel. As if worthily to recognise the heroic daring of the regiment at Waterloo, it has continued to be commanded by veterans who have earned their laurels in that proud field of fight. Lord Sandys was appointed in 1858, but only enjoyed the honour for two years, when death laid him low, and he was in turn succeeded by the present colonel, General Alex. K. Clarke Kennedy, C.B., K.G. The history of all these brave officers is replete with deeds of heroism, and it would have been truly a pleasant duty, had our space admitted, to have recounted somewhat of their achievements.

During the years of their home service, a part of the regiment was present at the imposing ceremony accompanying the burial of England's Naval Hero, Lord Nelson, in 1805. They were also present at the great review in Hyde Park in 1814, when the allied Sovereigns visited England after the Treaty of Paris.

The following year witnessed the escape of Napoleon from Elba, his return to France, and the general and disgraceful desertion of the French army to their old chief. This untoward event at once arrested the retiring armies of the allies, and recalled them again in haste to Paris. The promptitude and harmony of the measures adopted by the Cabinets of Britain and Prussia enabled their armies forthwith to take the field, and so stemming the returning tide of French despotism, for ever crush the might of the tyrant whose restless ambition, like an evil spirit, had so long troubled Europe. They

were honoured side by side to fulfil the first and last act in the short but decisive campaign which followed. Six troops of the Greys were ordered to the theatre of war, and, landing in the Netherlands in 1815, were brigaded with the Royals and their old comrades the Inniskillings, under Sir William Ponsonby. Anticipating no immediate attack from the French, and the better to obtain supplies, the Duke of Wellington had disposed his army as a chain of posts to watch the movements of the enemy. While separated from the Prussians, under Blucher, both armies narrowly escaped destruction. The immediate and personal presence of so able and enterprising a General as Napoleon, at the head of a powerful and wellappointed army-consisting largely of the veterans who, smarting under the disasters of a previous year, burned for revenge, or of those who, so unfortunately for their chief, had been too long incarcerated as garrisons in the distant fortresses of the Oder and Vistula, but who, released on the conclusion of the late peace, gladly welcomed their old commander, and followed him to the field with high hopes to retrieve the defeats of the past-the immediate presence of such an army rendered the position of the allies one of considerable danger. On the night of the 15th of June the Greys were unexpectedly awakened at the village of Denderhautem, to learn that the enemy was rapidly advancing to surprise and destroy the scattered fragments of the army in detail. Accordingly, immediate orders were issued to the various corps to concentrate in the vicinity of WATERLOO. A rapid march of fifty miles brought the Scots Greys, on the evening of the

16th, to Quatre Bras, where some of the British troops were surprised by a portion of the French army, under Marshal Ney, and all but cut to pieces. As the eventful morning of the 18th of June dawned, the British army, having completed its concentration, was drawn up in all the magnificence of battle array, and anxiously waited the arrival of their allies. The Prussians, however, had in the interim been attacked by Napoleon himself at Ligny, and nearly overthrown.

In the battle of Waterloo, the Greys occupied a position in rear of the left centre. It was late in the day when the Earl of Uxbridge brought the orders for that fatal and memorable charge, the result of which had such an effect on the battle. It must have been a splendid sight to have seen these gallant regiments (the Greys, Royals, and Inniskillings) "hurl them on the foe;" and it must have been nobly done, since it specially attracted the attention of the great Napoleon-(particularly referring to the Greys)-and drew forth from him those ever-memorable words: "These are splendid horsemen, but in less than half-an-hour I must cut them to pieces;" and therewith he did all that human mind could devise, or human might achieve, to fulfil his boast, and annihilate these brave soldiers. Despite a dreadful carnage, and the resoluteness with which the successive columns of the French sustained the dreadful fight, they could not prevail against our Gælic infantry, nor dismay the firmness of the British square, far less withstand the shock of our gallant cavalry-they were broken; and amidst the terrible confusion which ensued, Sergeant Ewart, of the Greys, succeeded in capturing the eagle

and colour of the Forty-fifth French regiment

a trophy which graced the day, and the eagle is a proud emblem on the regimental guidon. The Ninety-second Highlanders, reduced to 200 men, had long maintained a terrible conflict with a column of 2000 of the enemy. At length the Greys, charging a second time-but with sadly diminished numbers -came to the assistance of their countrymen, and, together, nearly annihilated the French. At the grand charge, where the famous and hitherto invincible Guards of Napoleon were brought forward for a last effort, the remnant of the Greys, kept in reserve, awaited the repulse of that dread column, when, a third time charging, they completed the ruin of their brave foemen. The loss to the regiment was upwards of 200 men. After the battle, they continued the pursuit of the enemy to the very gates of Paris; and, with other cavalry, contributed to prevent Napoleon re-forming or re-organising his still formidable legions. On the abdication of that mighty chief, the Greys returned to England in 1816. Thus, in three days, was the fate of an empire, nay, of the world, decided by British valour and Prussian firmness.

Passing over a long interval of peace-nearly forty years, during which nothing of sufficient importance transpired to call the Greys to take the field-we arrive at the time (1854) of the Crimean war, when Russian ambition, seeking to overwhelm Turkey in her weakness, was unexpectedly met and arrested in her unrighteous aggression, by France and Britain, on the plains of the Crimea. The Greys, as an after instalment of the British army, were sent out in the