6

enough to marry a young woman, who brought him a plantation for her dowry, which was reputed to have yielded him a revenue of £2000 sterling per annum. But this, of course, all went to wreck in one day, upon that mad decree of the French Convention, which proclaimed liberty, without distinction, without restrictions, and without gradations, to the unprepared and ferocious negroes. Even his wife and daughter would have perished simultaneously with his property, but for English protection, which delivered them from the black sabre, and transferred them to Jamaica. There, however, though safe, they were, as respected Colonel Charost, unavoidably captives; and his eyes would fill,' says the Bishop, ' when he told the family that he had not seen these dear relatives for six years past, nor even had tidings of them for the last three years.' On his return to France, finding that to have been a watchmaker's son was no longer a bar to the honors of the military profession, he had entered the army, and had risen by merit to the rank which he now held. He had a plain, good understanding. He seemed careless or doubtful of revealed religion; but said that he believed in God; was inclined to think that there must be a future state; and was very sure, that, while he lived in this world, it was his duty to do all the good to his fellow-creatures that he could. Yet what he did not exhibit in his own conduct he appeared to respect in others; for he took care that no noise nor disturbance should be made in the castle (i. e. the Bishop's palace) on Sundays, while the family, and many Protestants from the town, were assembled in the library at their devotions.

Boudet, the next in command, was a captain of foot, twenty-eight years old. His father, he said, was still liv ing, though sixty-seven years old when he was born. His height was six feet two inches. In person, complexion,

6

6

and gravity, he was no inadequate representation of the Knight of La Mancha, whose example he followed in a recital of his own prowess and wonderful exploits, delivered in measured language, and an imposing seriousness of aspect.' The Bishop represents him as vain and irritable, but distinguished by good feeling and principle. Another officer was Ponson, described as five feet six inches high, lively and animated in excess, volatile, noisy, and chattering, a l'outrance. He was hardy,' says the Bishop, and patient to admiration of labor and want of And of this last quality the following wonderful illustration is given: - A continued watching of five days and nights together, when the rebels were growing desperate for prey and mischief, did not appear to sink his spirits in the smallest degree.' This particular sort of strength has nothing in common with strength of muscle: I shall have occasion to notice it again in some remarks, which I may venture to style important, on the secret of happiness, so far as it depends upon physical means. The power of supporting long vigils is connected closely with diet. A few great truths on that subject, little known to men in general, are capable of making a revolution in human welfare. For it is undeniable that a sane state of the animal nature is the negative condition of happiness: that is to say, such a condition being present, happiness will not follow as the inevitable result; but, in the absence of such a condition, it is inevitable that there will be no happiness.

Contrasting with the known and well-established rapacity of the French army in all its ranks, (not excepting those who have the decoration of the Legion of Honor,) the severe honesty of these particular officers, we must come to the conclusion that they had been selected for their tried qualities of abstinence and self-control. Of

this same Ponson, the last-described, the Bishop declares that he was strictly honest, and could not bear the absence of this quality in others; so that his patience was pretty well tried by his Irish allies.' At the same time, he expressed his contempt for religion, in a way which the Bishop saw reason for ascribing to vanity — the miserable affectation of appearing worse than he really was.' One officer there was, named Truc, whose brutality recalled the impression, so disadvantageous to French republicanism, which else had been partially effaced by the manners and conduct of his comrades. To him the Bishop (and not the Bishop only, but every one of my own informants, to whom Truc had been familiarly known) ascribes a front of brass, an incessant fraudful smile, manners altogether vulgar, and in his dress and person a neglect of cleanliness, even beyond the affected negligence of republicans.'

Truc, however, happily, was not leader; and the principles or the policy of his superiors prevailed. To them, not merely in their own conduct, but also in their way of applying that influence which they held over their very bigoted allies, the Protestants of Connaught were under deep obligations. Speaking merely as to property, the honest Bishop renders the following justice to the enemy: And here it would be an act of great injustice to the excellent discipline constantly maintained by these invaders while they remained in our town, - not to remark that, with every temptation to plunder, which the time and the number of valuable articles within their reach presented to them in the Bishop's palace, from a sideboard of plate and glasses, a hall filled with hats, whips, and greatcoats, as well of the guests as of the family, not a single particular of private property was found to have been carried away, when the owners, after the first fright, came

to look for their effects, which was not for a day or two after the landing.' Even in matters of delicacy the same forbearance was exhibited: 'Beside the entire use of other apartments, during the stay of the French in Killala, the attic story, containing a library, and three bed-chambers, continued sacred to the Bishop and his family. And so scrupulous was the delicacy of the French, not to disturb the female part of the house, that not one of them was ever seen to go higher than the middle floor, except on the evening of the success at Castlebar, when two officers begged leave to carry to the family the news of the battle; and seemed a little mortified that the news was received with an air of dissatisfaction.' These, however, were not the weightiest instances of that eminent service which the French had it in their power to render on this occasion. The Royal army behaved ill in every sense. Liable to continual panics in the field, panics which, but for the overwhelming force accumulated, and the discretion of Lord Cornwallis, would have been fatal to the good cause, the Royal forces erred, as unthinkingly, in the abuse of any momentary triumph. Forgetting that the rebels held many hostages in their hands, they once recommenced the old system practised in Wexford and Kildare, of hanging and shooting without trial, and without a thought of the horrible reprisals that might be adopted. These reprisals, but for the fortunate influence of the French commanders, and but for their great energy in applying that influence according to the exigencies of time and place, would have been made it cost the whole weight of the French power; their influence was stretched almost to breaking, before they could accomplish the purpose of neutralizing the senseless cruelty of the Royalists, and of saving the trembling Protestants. Dreadful were the anxieties of those moments: and I myself heard per

sons, at a distance of nearly two years, declare that their lives hung at that time by a thread; and that, but for the hasty approach of the Lord Lieutenant by forced marches, that thread would have snapped. We heard with panic,' said they, of the madness which characterized the proceedings of our soi-disant friends: we looked for any chance of safety only to our nominal enemies, the staff of the French army.'