The 57th marched into action 580 bayonets, and at ten o'clock were hotly engaged; by two p.m. 22 officers and 430 men were killed and wounded.

The king's colour, which Ensign Jackson carried, received thirty balls through it, and two others broke the pole and carried away the top. Nine balls passed through his clothes, of which four wounded-one through the body.

During the greatest part of the battle the hostile lines were less than one hundred yards from each other.

Brevet-Major James Jackson was placed on retired full pay as captain, 57th Regiment, on the 25th June, 1841, and was promoted to the brevet rank of Lieutenant-Colonel on the 28th November, 1854. He is still living.

At the battle of Salamanca, on the 22nd of July, 1812, a ball struck the pole of the king's colour, cutting it nearly in two, and taking the epaulette off the shoulder of Lieutenant D'Arcy, of the Eighty-eighth Connaught Rangers, who carried it, and who escaped without injury.

In this battle the officers and sergeants with the colours of the Sixty-first fell under the enemy's fire, when they were seized by privates William Crawford and Nicholas Coulson, who carried them to the top of the hill. Crawford was immediately promoted to be sergeant, and the same rank was offered to Coulson, who replied that he was over-rewarded already by the cheers and thanks of his comrades, and the approbation of his officers. Sergeant Crawford fell a sacrifice to his gallantry in a subsequent encounter. Lieutenants Wolfe and Armstrong took charge of the

colours, and the regiment continued its advance; and when darkness put an end to the conflict, the British were victorious at every part of the field.

Lieutenant Edward Ring, of the Fifty-fifth regiment, then a youth, when he found there were no means of escape, saved the regimental colour, which he carried the whole time, at Bergen-op-Zoom, on the 9th of March, 1814, by tearing off the colour and concealing it in his bosom. This officer was subsequently chief of police in Ireland, and died from the effects of a gun-shot wound in the head, which he received whilst defending his father's house, in 1823, from the attack of a band of armed rioters, who were defeated, for which he, together with the rest of the family, received the thanks of the then Lord-Lieutenant, the Marquis of Wellesley, the Commander-inChief, together with addresses from the noblemen and gentlemen of the county of Cork.

Many other examples of devotedness to the colours might be instanced, but they would necessarily partake of the same heroism as the foregoing acts, which not being so generally known, and to correct imperfect statements, have been here inserted. In this respect, as in others, recent events in the Crimea and India have shown that British officers and soldiers have not degenerated, to which fact the deeds performed by the recipients of the Victoria Cross bear ample testimony.

INFLUENCE OF WEATHER IN

BATTLES.

"King Henry.-How bloodily the sun begins to peer Above yon busky hill! The day looks pale At his distemperature:

Prince Henry.

The southern wind

Doth play the trumpet to his purposes;
And, by his hollow whistling in the leaves,
Foretells a tempest, and a blustering day.

King Henry. Then with the losers let it sympathize;
For nothing can seem foul to those that win."
HENRY IV., Part 1.

INFLUENCE OF WEATHER IN BATTLES.

Ar the battle of Cressy, according to Froissart, "there fell a great rain and eclipse, with a terrible thunder; and before the rain there came flying over both battles a great number of crows, for fear of the tempest coming. Then anon the air began to wax clear, and the sun to shine fair and bright, the which was right in the Frenchmen's eyes and on the Englishmen's backs." The rain is said to have rendered the bowstrings of the Genoese archers useless, but the English, having kept their bows in cases, were not affected by the weather.

In the surprise at Cromdale, during the night of the 30th April, 1690, the weather influenced the escape of the Highlanders, for Sir Thomas Livingstone had laid his plans so well that the Highlanders had only time to escape without clothes; the naked men, after making across the plain, gained the hill, when a thick mist enveloped the heights, and hid them from the pursuing cavalry. Major-Generals Buchan and Cannon were surprised equally with their men, and the one escaped with his shirt and night-cap only, and the other minus coat, hat, and sword.

The defeat at Falkirk Moor on the 17th of January, 1746, was attributed to a violent storm of rain and wind the whole time of the action, which beat so in the face of the British, that they could not see before them; spoiled the ammunition in the act of loading;