590 MEMOIR OF SIR THOMAS MAKDOUGALL BRISBANE. 
that prince. Captain BrisBaNng, then in his 20th year, took part in all the affairs 
of the Flanders campaign, from St Amand to Nimeguen. In his reminiscences, 
he has left a spirited account of the affair at St Amand which is worthy of quota- 
tion, more especially as it was so often the theme of his after-dinner talk. It was 
his first battle, and he remembered it best. He says, ‘The first action of the 
war took place in the wood of St Amand, from which it became necessary to 
dislodge the enemy, who were there in large force, their object being to invest 
Valenciennes, and lay siege toit. The Prince of Cobourg commanded the Austrian 
army, which consisted of about 80,000 men, finely equipped and appointed, 
and in a high'state of discipline. On the 23d May the enemy, who were strongly 
entrenched for the purpose of covering Valenciennes, were attacked by the 
whole of the allied army at day-break, and after a severe action, were com- 
pletely routed. Several of the enemy’s regiments of cavalry made a full charge, 
but another part of them gave way before the allied army, and the enemy 
shortly afterwards fled. This engagement presented perhaps one of the grandest 
spectacles that ever was exhibited in war. The fog, at 3 o’clock in the morning, 
was so dense, before the action began, that it was impossible to see from the 
right to the left of the regiment. All at once the fog cleared away like the rising 
of the curtain of a theatre, and the armies were close in the presence of each 
other, when the action instantly began. The conflict did not terminate till 9 
o’clock at night; and although we gained possession of the enemy’s works, the 
firing did not cease till the darkness of night descended.” . 
Sir THomas was wont to remark, that his first and his last military appear- 
ance was on the same field. At Valenciennes, in 1793, he fleshed his maiden 
sword, and there he sheathed it with the army of occupation in 1816. At the 
engagement at Lille he lost in killed and wounded, twenty-two men out of the 
thirty-three whom he had brought into action, he himself being also wounded. 
Of this disastrous campaign, Sir Tuomas remarks, “ This was the severest 
winter I have ever seen in Europe. ‘The troops were literally frozen to the 
ground every morning, and in one of those severe nights 800 men were frozen to 
death, and both the Rhine and the Waal were so completely ice-bound, that the 
24-pounders, each of which could not be less than three tons in weight, passed 
with the greatest facility. The former was covered with a layer of ice six feet 
deep. The British army was ordered to march from Holland into Hanover, where 
we embarked in the spring of 1795, on the Weser river, for England, at which we 
landed and marched to Norwich.” 
From Norwich, Sir THomas went with the army to Southampton, in the 
autumn of 1795, where a large army was forming under Sir RautpH ABER- 
cROMBY, to attack the West India Islands. They sailed in the month of October, 
but were driven back by severe gales, and did not leave port until November. 
During this voyage an incident occurred which confirmed Sir THomas’s love 
