HE FINAL STRUGGLE.

On the 26th of November, 1814, a fleet of sixty great ships weighed
anchor, unfurled their sails, and put to sea, as the smoke lifted and
floated away from a signal gun aboard the Tonnant, the flagship of
Admiral Sir Alexander Cochrane, from Negril Bay, on the coast of
Jamaica. Nearly one half of these vessels were formidable warships, the
best of the English navy, well divided between line-of-battle ships of
sixty-four, seventy-four, and eighty guns, frigates of forty to fifty
guns, and sloops and brigs of twenty to thirty guns each. In all, one
thousand pieces of artillery mounted upon the decks of these frowned
grimly through as many port-holes, bidding defiance to the navies of the
world and safely convoying over thirty transports and provisioning
ships, bearing every equipment for siege or battle by sea and for a
formidable invasion of an enemy's country by land. Admiral Cochrane, in
chief command, and Admiral Malcombe, second in command, were veteran
officers whose services and fame are a part of English history.

On board of this fleet was an army and its retinue, computed by good
authorities to number fourteen thousand men, made up mainly of the
veteran troops of the British military forces recently operating in
Spain and France, trained in the campaigns and battles against Napoleon
through years of war, and victors in the end in these contests. Major
Latour, Chief Engineer of General Jackson's army, in his "Memoirs of the
War in Florida and Louisiana in 1814-15," has carefully compiled from
British official sources a detailed statement of the regiments, corps,
and companies which constituted the army of invasion under Pakenham, at
New Orleans, as follows:

Fourth Regiment--
King's Own, Lieutenant-colonel Brooks 750

Seventh Regiment--
Royal Fusileers, Lieutenant-colonel Blakency 850

Fourteenth Regiment--
Duchess of York's Own, Lieutenant-colonel Baker 350

Twenty-first Regiment--
Royal Fusileers, Lieutenant-colonel Patterson 900

Fortieth Regiment--
Somersetshire, Lieutenant-colonel H. Thornton 1,000

Forty-third Regiment--
Monmouth Light Infantry, Lieutenant-colonel Patrickson 850

Forty-fourth Regiment--
East Essex, Lieutenant-colonel Mullen 750

Eighty-fifth Regiment--
Buck Volunteers, Lieutenant-colonel Wm. Thornton