any real annoyance, and the 35th, 78th, and
31st sacrificed useless lives at Rosetta and El Hamet, the detachment
of the 78th being surrounded and losing 260 men out of 275. Several of
the men became leaders in the Turkish army, and one Scottish drummer
boy was until recently still living, the last survivor of General
Fraser’s small command.

But there were two incidents in these times that are worth recording,
those of the first attempts against South America at Buenos Ayres and
Monte Video, and the successive operations that led to the conversion
of the Cape of Good Hope into an English colony. Beginning with the
latter, it will be remembered that it was first taken possession of
in 1795, with the consent of the Prince of Orange, but contrary to
the desire, apparently, of the colonists, who resisted the attempt
to occupy a position at Simon’s Bay held by the 78th and some
marines; but when reinforced by the 84th, 95th, and 98th Regiments,
an advance was made on Wynberg, where, after a slight skirmish, the
inhabitants surrendered. In the same year a number of other small
Dutch possessions, including Colombo, fell into English hands. The
Cape was resigned in 1801 by the treaty of Amiens; but the alliance
between the French and Dutch led to the assembling of an expedition
for its recapture, in which a Highland brigade, the 71st, 72nd, and
93rd Regiments, a brigade composed of the 24th, 38th, 59th, and 83rd
Regiments, with the 20th Light Dragoons, and one field battery with two
howitzers, took part. The resistance was most feeble, and the enemy,
though armed with nineteen cannon, barely awaited the attack of even
the Highland brigade.

A number of the natives there were later formed into a regiment by
Colonel Graham, and these were the forerunners of the Cape Mounted
Rifles, a force which has done good service in Kaffir wars since. In
connection with this conquest, so important in the expansion of our
Eastern Empire, may also be recorded the capture, in 1810, of Mauritius
from France, and Java from the Dutch, i