BLACKWOOD'S
EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.

No. CCCCXIV.

APRIL, 1850.

Vol. LXVII.

EDINBURGH:
WILLIAM BLACKWOOD & SONS, 45, GEORGE STREET;
AND 37, PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON.

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PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS, EDINBURGH.

BLACKWOOD'S
EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.

No. CCCCXIV.

APRIL, 1850.

Vol. LXVII.

THE MINISTERIAL MEASURES.

At length signal-guns of distress have been fired from the Liberal fleet. Albeit stoutly denying the existence of any extraordinary suffering in Ireland, Ministers have brought forward a measure, based upon the admission of a distress there much exceeding anything which their opponents have alleged. Concealing or evading the loud cries of Colonial discontent, they have announced a policy implying a total revolution in Colonial government, and which never could have been conceded but from the consciousness of a vast amount of former maladministration. The Irish Reform Bill and the New System of Colonial Government are, par excellence, the measures of the session. We are not surprised they are so. They are the natural complement and unavoidable consequence of three preceding years of Free Trade and a fettered Currency.

The policy of Government since 1846 having been entirely founded upon the interests of the towns against the country, of the consumers against the producers, of those who had a majority in the House of Commons over those who were still in a minority, it might naturally be expected that the consequent suffering would be most acutely felt in the producing parts of the empire; in those places where agriculture was the staple of life, where producers were many and consumers few, and where, necessarily, the measures of the British urban majority acted with unmitigated severity. Ireland and the Colonies were the places in which these circumstances combined, because they were both provinces in which rural districts were of boundless extent, and towns few and of inconsiderable importance; in which civilisation was as yet, comparatively speaking, in its infancy; and mankind, yet occupied in the labours of the field, in felling the forest and draining the morass, were not congregated in the huge Babylons or Ninevehs, which are at once the distinctive mark and ineradicable curse of long-established civilisation. Ireland and the Colonies, therefore, were the places which suffered most, and in which discontent might be expected to be most formidable from the new system; and, accordingly, the first announcements of the Session of 1850 were of measures calculated, as Government supposed, to assuage the irritations and conciliate the affections of these important and avowedly discontented or suffering parts of the empire.

Ten years have not elapsed since Lord John Russell declared that we could not afford to have a Revolution every year, and that the Reform Bill had fixed the Constitution upon a basis which must not again be shaken. There can be no doubt of the justice of the observation; but the Liberals have always some qualification or reservation to let in a change of measures, if it appears expedient for their interests as a party to promote it. That declaration was made before the grand and distinctive features of Liberal government had developed themselves: before Free Trade had crushed Agricultural industry, and sapped the foundations of Colonial loyalty; and when no overbearing pressure from without reminded Ministers that the time had arrived when they must eat in their pledges. That time has now, however, come; distress, all but universal, has spread among all the rural producers of the empire; Ireland, the West Indies, and Canada, as the most entirely agricultural districts, have been the first to suffer in consequence. Measures calculated, as they conceive, to allay the prevailing discontent, have been brought forward by Government at the very time when they themselves, and their organs in the Press, were most strenuously denying that the new measures had produced anything but universal contentment and satisfaction throughout the empire.

The so-called Liberals have a very easy, and, as they deem it, efficacious mode of stifling or appeasing public discontent when it arrives at a formidable height. This consists in extending the suffrage among the querulous and suffering part of the people. They think that by so doing they will at once demonstrate their sympathy with the middle and lower classes, and secure, at least, for some elections to come, a majority of electors for their support, from a natural feeling of gratitude towards the Government which has conceded to them the suffrage. This system has been acted upon now for above a quarter of a century. No sooner had the contraction of the Currency, by the bills of 1819 and 1826, rendered it wholly inadequate for the industry of the empire, and produced the dreadful distress from 1826 to 1830 among the manufacturing and commercial classes, than they brought forward the Reform Bill in March 1831, and gave a decided majority in the House of Commons to these suffering and discontented urban electors. They have existed ever since on the gratitude of these newly enfranchised city voters. And now when the measures adopted, at the instigation of these urban constituencies, who compose three-fifths of the House of Commons, have totally ruined the West Indies, all but severed Canada, from the empire, and spread unheard-of distress throughout Ireland, they have a remedy, as they conceive, ready, in the extension of the suffrage to the suffering population. In this way the successive stages of general suffering, induced by Free Trade and a fettered Currency—in other words, a system of general cheapening of everything—issue in successive degradations of the franchise. The monetary crisis of 1825 led, after five years of suffering, to the Reform Bill for Great Britain; and the Free Trade crash of 1847 has issued, after three years of mortal agony, in the new Irish Reform Bill, and the announcement of provincial assemblies for the Colonies. If this system is continued for half a century more, it may reasonably be expected to lead, as it has done in France, to the introduction of universal suffrage. When everything is so cheapened that one-half of the population is landed in the workhouses, it is thought, everything will be righted, wisdom at once imprinted on the measures of Government, and contentment diffused through the country, by the paupers rising from their straw mattresses to vote for the Liberal candidates in ballot-boxes put up at the corners of every street.

It must be confessed that this system of appeasing discontent by extending the suffrage, has several things to recommend it. In the first place—and this is a most important consideration with Governments which behold the national resources wasting away under the influence of monetary and commercial measures, introduced by the dominant class—it costs nothing. The Chancellor of the Exchequer is sure to give it his cordial support. It is much easier to enfranchise two hundred thousand paupers or bog-trotters, than to issue two or three millions of exchequer bills to sustain their industry. The old panacea, so often applied in the days of Tory Government, when distress became general, to relieve it by issues of exchequer bills, has been totally discarded since a Liberal Administration, resting on the urban constituencies, was installed in power. It is now discovered that it is much better to give the sufferers votes. Undoubtedly it is cheaper; and in these days, when everything is sacrificed to cheapness, charity itself, albeit covering a multitude of sins, must be sacrificed to it with the rest. In the next place, it implies, or is likely to lead to, no change of public measures, no reaction against the commercial policy which has produced the suffering. The new voters, it may be presumed, will support the Liberal Government which has enfranchised them: gratitude will bear Ministers over more than one contested election. The very suffering produced by Free Trade measures will bring up a host of voters to the poll who will, it is hoped, support from gratitude the Free Trade candidate. That is a matter of immense importance. It is not only spreading division through the Protection camp, but recruiting in it for troops to themselves. And though, doubtless, it is scarcely to be expected that men in the long-run are to support representatives who are ruining them, yet it is often astonishing how long they will continue to do so from party influences: the poison, like the contagion of the cholera, floats in the air, without any one knowing whence it comes or whither it is going: and, at any rate, the opening of men's eyes is the work of time; and the great thing with Liberal Governments is to secure immediate support, or tide over immediate difficulties.

For observe one very remarkable feature in both the Liberal measures intended to allay the discontent in the agricultural districts of the empire—that is, that there is no change in the composition of the House of Commons. That assembly, which, as it has the command of the public purse, rules, by its majority, the whole empire, remains the same. Three-fifths of its members are still returned by the urban constituencies of Great Britain. At the late division on the motion of Mr Disraeli, the majority of twenty-one was composed of Scotch members, most of them members for burghs. Thus the ruling power is lodged in the urban constituencies, and the suffering rural districts are to be pacified by an extension of their electors, which will confer no real political power, and benefit no human being. The majority for Free Trade measures will be the same, whether the Irish members are returned by seventy-two thousand or three hundred thousand voters; or, rather, it is hoped by the promoters of the new measures, the Protectionists will be weakened by the change—because the Liberal candidate will be able to call himself the friend of the people, and to call out the new voters to record their votes for the Government which has enfranchised them.

So also in regard to the Colonies. The new measures announced by Lord John Russell propose to give provincial assemblies or parliaments to all the Colonies; and so far they are founded on just principles. But they contain no provision for the representation of any of the Colonies in the Imperial Parliament which meets in London. The fatal majority of three urban to two rural representatives still determines the measures of Government. The invaluable nomination burghs, by means of which the Colonies, under the old constitution, were so effectually represented, still are extinct. Colonial wealth now can get into Parliament only by the favour of urban constituencies—that is, by adopting Free Trade principles. Any man who stood upon the hustings in a British burgh, and proclaimed "Justice to the Colonies," would be speedily thrown into a minority, from the dread that his return might raise the price of sugar a penny a pound. Lord John Russell's Colonial parliaments will afford no remedy for this great and crying evil. It leaves the ruling power still in the hands of those actuated by an adverse interest, and directed by adverse desires. Give real representation to the Colonies indeed—give them a hundred members in the Imperial Parliament—and you make a mighty step in the principles of real, just government, and in reconstructing the bonds which once held together this great and varied empire. But to give them local assemblies which have no real power, and which are doomed to sit by and be the impotent spectators of their own and their constituents' ruin, by the burgh-directed measures of the Imperial Parliament, is to mock them with a shadow of constitutional privileges which, in this age of intelligence, will not long be borne. It is giving the means of organising discontent, without those of averting disaster; and preparing, in those powerless provincial assemblies, men for the assertion of rights which, as was the case with North America, will one day cause the tearing asunder and dismemberment of the empire.

Nineteen years have elapsed since, in the very first paper on Parliamentary Reform in this Magazine, we pointed out the fatal effect of the extinction of Colonial representation by schedules A and B, as the grand defect of the Reform Bill; and predicted that it would, if not remedied, lead to the dissolution of the empire.[1] Consequences, since that time, have followed precisely as we predicted. The short-sighted urban majorities of the dominant island have perseveringly pursued their separate and immediate interests, until they have ruined the West Indies, to make sugar cheap,—all but ruined Ireland, to make oats cheap,—and rendered agricultural distress universal in Great Britain, to make bread cheap. The discontent produced by these measures having become universal among the rural producers in the empire, Government, thinking they are applying a remedy to the most suffering parts, propose to extend the rural suffrage in Ireland, by lowering the existing suffrage of ten pounds, requisite to enfranchise on a piece of ground, to an eight-pound interest, and creating everywhere provincial parliaments in the Colonies. They never were more mistaken. What is wanted in the Colonies and in Ireland is not an extension of voters or local parliaments, but a just system of government at home. Fiscal measures, which shall secure their interests, are what they require; and they can only be passed by the Imperial Parliament. What these measures are, is well known: you have only to take up any file of the Jamaica, Sidney, or Montreal papers to see what are the sentiments of the Colonies. Introduce Colonial representation, in numbers adequate to their wealth, population, and importance, into the Parliament of Great Britain, and the effect will be immediate. Measures such as they desire will soon be carried, and the threatened dismemberment of the empire averted. Delay or refuse the possession of real power to these important parts of the British dominions, and you only aggravate existing discontent, and accelerate approaching dismemberment. To suppose you can now alleviate Irish suffering by quadrupling its electors, and stifle Colonial discontent by giving them local parliaments, is as absurd as if it had been proposed to still the storm of indignation raised in all the manufacturing towns of Great Britain by the suffering consequent on the contraction of the Currency, by giving the complainers all votes for their respective town-councils.

Although, however, for twenty years past, we have anticipated with certainty the ultimate extension of the suffrage to a still lower class of voters, as the unavoidable consequence of the Reform Bill, yet we must admit that we did not anticipate the mode in which the necessity for this extension was to be brought about. We thought it would arise from the increase of the unenfranchised population, and the loud cry for electoral privileges on the part of the inferior urban or working population. Not at all: a very different reason is now assigned for the extension of the suffrage in Ireland. It is not the increase of the unenfranchised, but the diminution of the enfranchised, which is assigned as the reason for the change. It is said there are now only 72,000 voters in Ireland, instead of 250,000, which there should be, and which it was calculated the Reform Bill would bring up to the poll. Mr Cobden boasts that he has more constituents in the West Riding than there are in all the counties in Ireland put together. We have no doubt the remark is well founded; although the fact of so numerous a constituency having selected the man who made the boast, augurs but little for the wisdom, if kindred, of the measures which we may expect from the popularly elected representatives for the sister kingdom. But the material thing to observe is this: A great and important change on the Reform Bill—an innovation on the foundations which, we were told, were non tangenda non movenda of the new Constitution, is vindicated on the immense destruction of the former freeholders which has taken place within these few years. We have long been aware of the fact: we adverted to it, in the most pointed manner, in a late article on the effects of Free Trade.[2] But we little expected that our observations were so soon to be confirmed from so high a quarter, and that the first breach in the Constitution, as fixed by the Reform Bill, would be justified on the avowed destruction of the freeholders of Ireland which the Reform measures have effected.

For what is it which has occasioned such a chasm in the freeholders at this time, and rendered it necessary, on the admission of Ministers themselves, to lower the suffrage to an £8 interest, if we would marshal anything like a competent number of freeholders round the Reform banners? It is in vain to refer to the famine of 1846. That famine occurred three years ago: it was bountifully relieved by the British Government; and since its termination we have had two fine harvests, those of 1847 and 1849, for each of which a public thanksgiving was returned. A bad harvest does not destroy some hundred thousand electors. If it does, there are heirs who succeed in ordinary circumstances to the freeholds, and form as respectable an army of electors as their fathers had done. What has become of all the heirs of the starved electors, if they were really starved? What has become of the freeholds which they formerly held? The answer is obvious, and has been now officially returned by Government, and made the foundation of a great constitutional change. They have been destroyed by the Free Trade measures. The Reform Bill, in its ultimate effects, has crushed the brood whom it warmed into life. Above 200,000 holders of land, in Ireland, have disappeared since 1845. It is now admitted that they were, for the most part, the highest class of cultivators; for the extension of the suffrage is justified on the fearful diminution of their numbers. So rapid has been their destruction, so fearful the process of deterioration they have undergone, that out of above 500,000 holders of land who are still in Ireland, only 72,000 could be found qualified under the Reform Act; and, to augment the number of these, it is necessary to lower the franchise to £8. Eight pounds a-year is little more than the average maintenance of a pauper in England. But such is the misery which Free Trade measures have spread in Ireland, that it is there the standard of a freehold qualification.

It is in vain to refer to the 40s. freeholders of England as affording a precedent or a parallel to town franchise. Everybody knows that the 40s. freehold—originally, when established in the time of Henry VI., a measure of landed property worth £20 or £30 a-year at this time—had come, from the change in the value of money, to be a mere house qualification. No one supposes that the 40s. freeholder lives on his 40s.; it is the value merely of the cottage, garden, or paddock which he holds in freehold. He lives on extraneous resources, the wages of labour, realised means, or the aid of his family. But the £8 tenant in Ireland lives on the subject which qualifies him. In nine cases out of ten, he has no other means of livelihood whatever, and the franchise is the measure of his whole substance. It is little better in most cases than the income of an English pauper; but, such as it is, we have no doubt it is all that Free Trade measures will allow the great majority of Irish cultivators to earn; and that, unless the franchise is to dwindle away till the Irish counties in many cases become Gattons and Old Sarums, it is absolutely indispensable to enfranchise such a miserable and destitute class. But we did not expect, amidst all the gloom of our anticipations from the effects of the Reform Bill, and its consequent Free Trade measures, that this misery and destitution were to reach such a height, that it was to be proclaimed by Lord John Russell himself, and made the ground of the first great breach in his own Constitution!

It is not surprising that Government, amidst all the professions of confidence in the national resources, and assertions of general prosperity from Free Trade measures, should be thus, in their legislative acts, betraying a secret consciousness of the rapid decline of agricultural remuneration and of the existence of widespread Colonial distress. The prospects of the cultivators, both at home and in the Colonies, are gloomy in the extreme. The price of wheat is now known: it has been judicially fixed, at least in Scotland. The fiar prices in that country are, on an average, £1, 16s. for wheat, and 14s. for oats; instead of 51s. for the former, and 24s. for the latter, which they were three years ago, before the Irish famine set in. Good wheat is selling at this moment in the Haddington market at £1, 13s. 6d. a quarter—lower than it has been for a hundred and fifty years. Black cattle have fallen in the proportion of ten to six, or forty per cent; and although the rents of sheep-farms have as yet, from the high prices of wool, not been materially affected, yet it is well known that they too will ere long share in the general decline. Rents are in most parts of Ireland irrecoverable: the misery in many of its Unions equals that of the worst period of the famine. Rents in Scotland will at next term-day be postponed: the tenants, acknowledging their inability to pay, generally are already asking for time; and it is well understood on both sides, that, if the present low prices continue, the arrears, now fast accumulating, will become irrecoverable. On England it is unnecessary to dwell: it has spoken out in a voice which can neither be mistaken nor pretended to be unheard.

But why go into details to illustrate a fact which, so far from being denied, is openly admitted, and even gloried in by the Free-traders? In a late paper on Free Trade, we estimated the decline in the value of agricultural produce, in the British islands, in consequence of free trade in grain, at £75,000,000, or a fourth of its amount. But the Free-traders tell us, and apparently with reason, that this is too low an estimate. Mr Villiers, in seconding the Address in the House of Commons, calculated the saving of the people, in the consumption of all the kinds of food, since 1847, at £91,000,000; and if to this is added the price of the 12,000,000 quarters of all sorts of grain, which were imported in the course of 1849, estimated at the moderate average of 20s. a quarter, the loss to the agricultural interest will be £103,000,000. But this is evidently too high, as the prices of 1847 were scarcity prices, owing to the famine in Ireland; and deducting £13,000,000 on that account, there will remain £90,000,000 at the very least which has been lost in one year to the agricultural interest of Great Britain and Ireland. This is more than a third of its amount, which may be taken, under the reduced scale of prices, for three years prior to the Irish famine, at £250,000,000 annual value.

But this, it is said, is all a landlords' question: the community at large, and, above all, the borough electors who rule the empire, have no interest in it. A landlords' question truly! Why, the whole land rents of the two islands,[3] abstracting from them those of houses, are under £60,000,000 annually; and a loss of £90,000,000 a-year is a landlords' question only! It is, at least, as much a tenants' question as a landlords'; and as there are now 750,000 holders of land in the two islands of Great Britain and Ireland, amounting with their families to 2,500,000 souls, this body, one and all of whom have been impoverished by the change, must be taken as a clear addition to the landlords, who have been directly and deeply injured by the same causes. And what are we to say to the agricultural labourers, mechanics, millers, wheelwrights, and artificers, who depend directly, immediately, and almost entirely, on the market for the produce of their industry among the rural population? At the very least, their incomes would all decline a half, and they, with their families, amount to some millions more. And this is what the Free-traders call a landlords' question!

But, in truth, we deprecate, and that in the most earnest manner, all these calculations of class loss or suffering, so far as they proceed on the idea that it is possible for one class to suffer without every other speedily doing the same. Such arguments and topics were never heard of in Great Britain till the Reform Bill gave one class in society, viz. the urban shopkeepers, the command of the British Empire. We acknowledge one only interest in the whole community, and that is the interest of all classes; we acknowledge one only family—that is, the whole British people. Their real interests are, and ever must be, the same. It is impossible, in one community, that one great interest can be suffering while others are thriving. Such a thing might happen for a time, when the manufacturing interest was prosperous from a sudden extension of the export sale in some considerable foreign markets; but such a gleam of sunshine must be temporary only, if not accompanied by a simultaneous growth in the great and, only durable issue for goods—the home market. The whole manufactures exported at present—one of the most prosperous years, so far as the export sale goes—are about £60,000,000 a-year. The manufactures taken off by the home market are estimated, by the most experienced authorities, at £120,000,000. Of the £60,000,000 exported, about £16,000,000 goes to our own Colonies, so that the home and colonial market takes off yearly £136,000,000; all foreign markets put together, £44,000,000.

In other words, the home and colonial market is more than three times all foreign markets put together. How is it possible after this to deny that a serious and lasting blow, struck at the rural producing interests in the British islands and the Colonies, must ere long react, and that, too, with terrible effect, on the prosperity of our manufacturers? Mr Villiers boasts that Free Trade has cut £91,000,000 off the remuneration of the British farmers. Is it not evident that, assuming this to be true, the greater part of this sum is cut of the funds which pay in the home market? and if so, how long will our £120,000,000 consumed in the home market be in sinking to £80,000,000, or some still lower figure? And will Manchester and Glasgow be much benefited, if they gain £10,000,000 or £12,000,000 annually in the foreign market, and lose £40,000,000 or £50,000,000 in the home?

Already it has become painfully evident that this effect is taking place in this country. Ministers boast of the exports having increased above £10,000,000 in 1849 over what they were in 1848, and of their having now turned £60,000,000 a-year. Let it be supposed that this is all to be put down to the account of Free Trade, and that our Indian victories, the pacification of Europe, the crushing of revolution in France, and the impulse given to American purchase by Californian gold, had nothing at all to do with the matter. Is the country prosperous?—are the railways prosperous?—are poor-rates declining?—is labour in request either in the rural or urban districts? The facts are notoriously the reverse. At this moment we happen to know that above ten thousand looms in Manchester are preparing to put their mills upon the short time of forty hours a-week. The railways never were so low: at an average, their stock is worth little more than a third of what it was three years ago. Much was said in Parliament of the decrease of poor-rates by £300,000 or £400,000 a-year. That is entirely owing to the fall in the price of provisions, which at once, and materially, lessened the cost of maintaining the paupers. Had the rates fallen really in proportion to the decline in the price of provisions, they would have gone down fifty per cent, or above £2,000,000 annually. A decline of a few hundred thousand pounds a-year only, in such circumstances, was in reality not a fall, but a rise. And in Scotland, the poor-rates for 1849, despite the fall in the cost of maintaining the paupers, were higher than in 1848, or than in any preceding year: they rose from £544,000 a-year to £576,000. As to Ireland, it is admitted on all hands that its condition was never worse, even during the worst periods of the famine.

Now, the real question which it behoves the moneyed interest, and especially the fundholders, to conder, and that most seriously, is this:—How do they expect that the interest on their bonds or the dividends on their stock are to be paid if this ceaseless and progressive decline in the resources of their debtors is to go on? How are the dividends raised for payment of the national creditors, or the interest provided to meet private mortgages, on which so large a part, probably two-thirds, of the realised capital of the country depends? Is it not entirely from the exertions of the producing classes, who, or whose fathers, became debtors in these varied transactions? But is it possible that the security of creditors can escape being shaken, if the resources of their debtors are continually declining? In private life we are never mistaken on this subject. If a creditor sees his debtor's funds wasting away under improvident or absurd management, or a landlord sees his tenants running out his land by scourging and ruinous crops, he at once takes the alarm. But with the public creditors the case is just the reverse. They sit by and see the indirect taxes, upon the faith of which their money was advanced, repealed one after another for a long course of years; and the national armaments, upon which the public safety and the independence of the country depend, threatened with ruin by an ignorant, blind, and selfish democracy; and it never enters into their imaginations for a moment to entertain the least apprehension for their own payments. They think, though every other interest in the country is ruined, they will stand erect amidst the wreck. Deceived by the perfect regularity with which their interest has been paid for the last hundred and fifty years, they cannot conceive that it should ever be otherwise. They would as soon expect to see the sun not rise in the morning, as the dividends on the three-per-cents not paid in January and June. But a little consideration must show that this confidence may ere long be found to be misplaced. The dividends are paid entirely out of the national income: whatever seriously affects or diminishes the national income, so much diminishes the fund from which they must be drawn. The ninety millions which Mr Villiers boasts has been cut off from the remuneration of agriculture has made a fearful chasm in it—probably not less than a third of its whole amount. One other such blow, and the payment of the dividends will become impossible—and the moneyed interest, whose selfish rapacity has occasioned all the mischief, will share in the general ruin they have created.

It is hard to say whether, as society is now constituted and power distributed in this country, the fundholder has most to fear from years of general suffering or from periods of transient prosperity. Is the nation flourishing, are exports increasing, taxes well paid, a surplus revenue beginning to appear, and a huge store of useless and costly bullion accumulated in the bank? We are immediately told the surplus must be devoted to the remission of taxes: it is dangerous to leave the Treasury full; it is a temptation to Government, and serves to feed the younger sons of the aristocracy. No matter how fleeting the surplus may be, though it has arisen from an accidental combination of circumstances which may disappear before the year is out—and it is well known, taxes once taken off are very rarely reimposed—the surplus must be instantly relinquished for the permanent remission of taxes. Are times adverse, do the heavens threaten monetary squalls, and is the import of grain and export of sovereigns likely to lay, as in 1847, half the commercial world on their beam-ends? Instantly the cry gets up that the taxes cannot be paid; that the national expenditure is shamefully extravagant; that the army must be disbanded, the ships of the line sold, and the national independence trusted to the generous cosmopolitan spirit of the Americans, or the unambitious disposition of the Czar. In both circumstances the national safety, and with it the security of the public creditor, are endangered: in the first, by the permanent remission of revenue, in consideration of a transient gleam of prosperity; in the last, by a permanent abandonment of the national defences, in consequence of a temporary period of disaster. And as we inevitably pass now, and must ever pass, under our wise and judicious system of Free Trade and a Fettered Currency, from the one to the other, it is evident that not a year passes over our heads that the security of the fundholders is not more and more endangered, and this by the effects of the very system which their own selfish and class legislation has introduced.

It is to this point—the inevitable reaction of agricultural distress upon commercial prosperity and the general resources of the empire, that we anxiously wish to direct our readers' attention. The theory of the Manchester school is, "Give us a sufficient amount of imports, and the exports will take care of themselves." They care not how widely they may prostrate the industry of the country, so as they get a profitable trade to themselves. But the point they have now to consider, Can they secure this profitable trade to themselves, if the industrial resources of this country—in other words, their customers' means of paying for their goods—are daily declining? That our imports are constantly increasing, is true: it is what the Protectionists always predicted would be the case. But that increase is no index to national prosperity: on the contrary, it is the forerunner of national distress, because it implies a progressive supplanting of our own industry by that of foreigners. The following extract from the Returns for January 1850, ending 5th February 1850, will show how largely the productions of foreign countries are trenching upon those of our own:—

It is the same with nearly all the other articles. How our manufacturers and artisans are to go on, any more than our farmers, striving against this prodigious and rapid increase of foreign importations, it is for them to say; but probably experience will, ere long, enlighten their understandings on this subject.

Indeed this inevitable reaction of domestic distress in trade, as well as agriculture, against the Free Trade System, has already set in. We make the following extracts from the Circular of Messrs T. & H. Littledale & Co. of Liverpool, perhaps the greatest brokers in the world, for Monday 4th March 1850:—

Here is a decline from 3 to 2 in all branches of the cotton trade, since the two first months of last year, except in stocks, in which there is an increase from 4 to 5¼. We recommend this to the attention of the gentlemen in Manchester who introduced the Free Trade System. We shall not imitate their example by saying it is a "Cotton Lord Question," with which the public generally has no concern.

In the close of the same Circular it is stated:—

"General Remarks.—The month of February affords little matter for comment. It has been a particularly dull month in business, and, when contrasted with the energy and speculative excitement of January, the sudden change appears the more striking. There is probably no one cause to which this can be attributed, but principally, no doubt, from a reaction, the invariable consequence of over-activity. The old complaints of railway depression and Continental disquiet may have had some influence, but the large arrivals of some articles, Tea, for instance, of which twenty-five cargoes have come to hand in five weeks, and the near approach of the import season for Sugar, Coffee, and other produce, taken in connexion with the advance of prices at the opening of the year, have deterred the wholesale houses from operating beyond their immediate wants.

"Great complaints are made of the bad state of the country shopkeepers in the agricultural districts. We have closely questioned some of our wholesale grocers and tea-dealers, who assure us that there is no disguising the fact that such is the case, and that the general answer received from travellers is, 'they can get neither money nor orders.' The serious falling off in the deliveries of sugar, coffee, tea, and cocoa, for the two months of this year, compared with those of the last, but too truly confirms these complaints, and are perhaps the most alarming features in our present prospects. As given in Prince's Public Prices Current of 1st inst. they stand as follows:—

"The Chancellor's Budget is expected to be brought forward on the 15th instant, when some measure may possibly be proposed to check the unfair use of Chicory with Coffee; and to do this, it is thought by some that an equalisation of the Duties on Colonial and Foreign Coffee may be necessary; but, in the present relative position of prices here and on the Continent, the effect of such a change would not be much felt."

It is evident that squalls are approaching, which, indeed, under our present Free Trade and Monetary System, are the inevitable results of a brief period of prosperity; and let it be recollected, when another crisis does arrive, as arrive it will, the consequences will be far more disastrous than the last. Then the agricultural interest was prosperous, because the Corn Laws were not repealed; and the magnitude of the Home Markets sustained the nation during the dreadful commercial crisis which prostrated so large a part of the foreign manufacturers. Now the case is just the reverse,—distress is beginning with the home markets: and the agricultural population, so far from supporting the manufacturing in their difficulties, will be fain to recur to them for support in their distresses. Hundreds of thousands of agricultural labourers, thrown out of bread by the effects of Free Trade, will be crowding into the towns as they did into the great cities in the later periods of the Roman Empire, in the hope of finding that employment from the wealth of the urban population, or that relief from their charities, which they can no longer look for in their native seats.

A highly distinguished officer and writer, who will not readily be suspected of a leaning towards Tory principles, General Sir William Napier, the eloquent historian of the Peninsular War, has lately written a letter, which has appeared in the columns of the Observer, portraying the effects of Free Trade upon the fate and independence of the nation in future times, in such powerful and graphic colours, that we cannot resist the satisfaction of giving it additional publicity through the columns of this Magazine:—

"MAJOR-GENERAL SIR WILLIAM NAPIER'S OPINION OF FREE TRADE GENERALLY.

"Extract from a Letter to Mr Lloyd Caldecot.

"Free Trade means an unrestricted intercourse, and exchange of productions, natural or artificial, amongst all the civilised nations of the world. Trace the effect of this general Free Trade, if such a thing could be attained. It must be that all nations, according to their skill and energy, will draw forth and make the most of their natural productions: one nation may be a little more skilful, a little more energetic than the rest; but, generally speaking, the amount of civilisation and consequent knowledge will be equal at first, or will be soon equalised by this free intercourse. Will not the result be, that each nation must take rank in the world according to the extent of its natural and artificial resources. What will that lead to? Why, that England will sink from the first rank in the world to the fifth or sixth rank, as it cannot be contended that her natural resources, though now more drawn forth, are really equal to those of North America, of Russia, of France, of Germany, or even of Spain and Italy; and we may look forward to the South American kingdoms, and independent Canada, and Australia, as countries destined to overtop her. It will be said, Englishmen are braver, more enterprising and skilful, than other people; more thoughtful and long-sighted. That would be a poor argument, and a presumptuous one, as regards Frenchmen and Americans, and would be no argument at all against Australians and Canadians, both being Saxon. But if it were a solid ground for hope, how is it that those superior qualities can be brought into play? Why, surely, by subtle contrivances of policy, which will give them free scope. What are those contrivances? Commercial treaties, supported by arms; that is the policy which has, and the only policy which can, raise a small country, like England, to be the head of the world. How else has she risen? Can it be supposed that a plain, unambitious policy of merely exchanging productions with other nations will raise her, or keep her, above her natural level? No! she must use her subtilty to overreach other nations, and her energy and courage to maintain her superiority; and then, with war and overreaching, away goes Free Trade. If courage, energy, and subtilty are laid aside, England sinks, as I said, to a fifth-rate power, because her natural resources are less than those of other nations; and, by Free Trade, she shall teach those who do not know their own resources how to find their value.

"The world is not now as it was two hundred years ago. There are no new countries to discover,—no new sources of riches that can be held in monopoly, or to be found out of the bounds of the civilised world. Look at California. Can the Americans keep it to themselves? All the world goes there. England must then give up her commercial policy, which for centuries, whether good or bad, has certainly been compatible with advancing greatness, and she must start in a new race, with nations superior to her in natural resources, and with the weight of £800,000,000 of debt on her back; and to obtain even a place in this race, proposed by herself, she must break up all her artificial system, with the social relations established under it; thus destroying the fortunes and happiness of multitudes, inviting revolution, and risking the extinction of her debt, which will add hundreds of thousands of miserable broken creditors to the multitude of revolutionists.

"Well, she may survive all this, and, perhaps, be happier within her natural bounds; but she cannot be a great nation; and she has to choose between her present greatness and an uncertain prospect of humbler content, to which she must wade amidst blood and social commotion. But will she be allowed to enjoy that humbler contentment? Will not ambition stir other nations, when they find their power to oppress her? What will her courage avail her then? Modern warfare depends entirely upon mechanical and manufacturing resources, in which her enemies will have a lead over her, because their natural resources are greater, and Free Trade will have taught them how to make the most of them.

"I do not give you all this dogmatically, but I cannot myself see that Free Trade will produce any other results; and I look upon it as certain, that if other nations do not adopt our Free Trade notions, that we cannot put them in practice without destroying the National Debt: in other words, a fatal struggle between the landed and moneyed interest.

"Free Trade for England is, I think, well illustrated by the story of the bear in Marryat's Captain Violet:—'Bruin being up a peach-tree, was vigorously shaking down the fruit for his own eating, but a hog was below very complacently eating the peaches as they fell, and expressing by grunts his satisfaction at the bear's generosity.'—Yours, &c.,

"Feb. 2, 1850. William Napier."

This is ably and manfully spoken. That it is true, is now in the course of such clear demonstration to the nation, that it will ere long bring home conviction to the most prejudiced. But it is a curious fact, illustrative of the truth of the principles we have so long maintained in this Magazine, that such an exposition of the effects which Reform has produced, by vesting the government of the nation in the urban constituencies, should come from a gallant officer, the historian on Whig principles of the Peninsular War, and whose zeal for Reform was known to have been so ardent, that certain proposals were made to him from a certain quarter when "the Bill" was thought to be endangered, which he at once spurned, as might have been expected from a soldier and gentleman of his elevated character.

There is another Napier equally celebrated on another element, whose opinions have been recently as strongly expressed on the effects of Reform, and its offspring Free Trade, on our national defences. All the world is familiar with the energetic letter which Admiral Sir Charles Napier has lately published, on the alarming decline of our naval forces. It may be that our Manchester politicians, and their disciples in the Cabinet, by studying their Trades' Circulars, and occasionally sharpening their intellects by declamations on the hustings on the extravagance of the national armaments, and the expediency of selling our ships of the line and disbanding our troops in anticipation of the millennium which is approaching, are better judges of the probable issue of a land contest than the Duke of Wellington, whose opinion has been equally strongly expressed on the subject, or the historian of, and actor in, the Peninsular War; and of the chances of maritime warfare, than the hero who saved the Turkish empire from dismemberment at Acre, and established the throne of Don Pedro by the victory of Lisbon. That is no doubt possible, though we can hardly regard it as very probable. But if such a catastrophe, as our immortal Field-Marshal and these two very eminent Liberals anticipate, does occur—if Great Britain, cast down to the rank of a fifth-rate power, finds its maritime superiority destroyed, and its colonies lost—if its fleets are blockaded in their harbours, and its manufacturing millions are thrown back on ruined landlords and bankrupt master-manufacturers for their daily bread, let it be always recollected it is no more than has been distinctly foreshadowed to them by those best qualified to form a correct judgment on the subject, and no more than they have brought upon themselves, by their blind adherence to a selfish policy.

To all these disasters, present and future, the Free-traders have one set-off to apply, and that is the increased consumption of food, which they suppose has taken place in the country in consequence of their measures. Sir R. Peel contended strongly that the five million quarters of wheat alone imported in 1849, afforded decisive evidence of the increased wellbeing of the working classes. If the right honourable Baronet will take the trouble to travel through any of the grain districts of the country, he will perceive at once how fallacious this argument is. The barnyards never were so full at this season in any former year. Every farmer has held his stock who was not forced to sell. The nation has, since the last harvest, been fed by foreigners to an unprecedented extent. Ten millions has been sent out of the country to buy foreign wheat, and, of course, lost to British industry. The five million quarters of wheat imported have been less an addition to the national consumption, than a transference of that consumption from British farmers to foreigners. At least a half of the present harvest will be rolled over to next year. If we are blessed with another fine harvest, there will be the crop of a year and a half, besides ten or twelve millions imported in 1851, to stock the market. Prices in all probability will be much lower than they are at present.

We are always reminded that in 1835 prices were 39s. 5d. on an average of the year for wheat. True, and why was that? Because we had had four fine harvests in succession; so fine that the importation of wheat, on an average of five years ending with 1835, had been only 398,000 quarters a-year. Now one fine harvest and the importation have done the whole. But we are indebted to the Free-traders for so often reminding us of the low prices of 1835. They demonstrate that the nation in good seasons can feed itself in the most affluent degree. Foreign importation, therefore, except in bad years, is unnecessary; and all the destruction of domestic industry it produces is as unnecessary as it is short-sighted.

It will appear the most extraordinary of all phenomena to future ages, that a nation which has, like the British, successfully resisted the attacks of external enemies, and incessantly grown and prospered, though with occasional disaster, during more than a thousand years—and which has in our own recollection repelled the attacks and overthrown the powers of the greatest coalition ever formed against a single state, directed by the most consummate ability which has appeared in modern times—should in this manner voluntarily descend from its high position, surrender its power, starve down its armaments, and drive headlong on the road to ruin, for the supposed advantage of a limited class in its bosom. But the marvel ceases when the composition of its society, and the prevailing feelings of the section of the people in whom supreme power is now vested, is taken into consideration. That class is the mercantile, or rather shopkeeper class; and with them the money power is all powerful. Three-fifths of the seats in the House of Commons, let it ever be recollected, are for boroughs; and two-thirds of the constituents of every borough are shopkeepers or those whom they influence. This is the decisive circumstance, which has changed the whole policy of England, since the Reform Bill, and in its ultimate consequences is destined, to all appearance, to produce the national disasters which many of its warmest supporters now so feelingly deplore. To the modern rulers of the British nation, to the constituents of the majority of the House of Commons, to buy cheap and to sell dear is the great object of ambition. They have gained the first; let them see whether they will secure the last. Let them see whether, amidst the ruin of the agricultural interest, and the declining circumstances of all trades, which are exposed to the effects of foreign competition, they, the sellers of commodities, will make their fortunes. If they do, it will be a new era in society; for it will be one in which the trading class amass riches in consequence of the ruin of their customers.

On this account there are Protectionists who deprecate any attempt to displace the Government at this time, or force upon a reluctant majority in the House of Commons a change in the present commercial policy of the country. It is said that Free Trade, though it has been in operation for three years and a-half, has not had a fair trial; the Irish famine, the failure of £15,000,000 worth of produce out of £30,000,000 worth in a single year, did all the mischief. Be it so. Let Free Trade have a fair trial. Let the shopkeepers see what benefit they are likely practically to gain by the ruin of their customers. They have the Government in their hands, because they have the appointment of a majority in the House of Commons. The agricultural interest, the colonies, the shipping interest, the small manufacturing interest, are to all practical purposes disfranchised. Let the trading classes, then, feel the effects of their own measures. These will be such that they cannot continue. Ere long a change of policy, and probably of rulers, will be forced upon Government by the universal cry of suffering. But let them recollect that it is their measures which are now on their trial; that theirs will be the responsibility if they fail; and that if the empire is dismembered, and the national independence lost, theirs will be the present loss, and theirs the eternal infamy.

BRITAIN'S PROSPERITY.
A NEW SONG, WHICH OUGHT TO HAVE BEEN SUNG BY THE PREMIER AT THE OPENING OF PARLIAMENT.

I.

News for you, gentlemen! Here is prosperity,
Fat and fullhanded, arrived at our door:
Crashes, disaster, and famine's severity,
Never can harass or trouble us more.
No miching malecho!
Spin away calico!
Never saw man such a prospect before!

II.

All things are cheapened. Good sirs, in the galleries,
Pray bear this cheerful announcement in mind—
All things are down—except Ministers' salaries,
Taxes, and some little jobs of the kind.
Small trades are finishing,
Wages diminishing—
That is the way to be happy, you'll find.

III.

Wheat's at a price that won't pay for the growing it,
That is to say, if we cultivate here;
Why should we therefore persist, sirs, in sowing it?
Beautiful markets are plenty and near.
Hang the home labourer!
Buy from your neighbour, or
Any one else, so you don't buy it dear.

IV.

True pioneers of a better and brighter age,
We have diminished the charges for freight;
Some little dues there may still be for "lighterage,"[4]
But, on the whole, 'tis a moderate rate.
Wheat for a guinea a
Load from Volhynia
Comes to your shores, and is lodged at your gate.

V.

Huxtable's pigs, though replete with ammonia,
Never worked any such wonders as these;
Barley from Mecklenburg, grain from Polonia,
Butter from Holland, American cheese;
Bacon gratuitous,
Cargoes fortuitous,
Float to our coasts with each prosperous breeze.

VI.

What need we care though a desperate peasantry
Prowl round the stackyards with tinder and match?
Blandly we'll smile at such practical pleasantry:
Downing Street is not surmounted by thatch.
We're not prohibiting
Some gentle gibbeting
When the poor starving delinquents you catch.

VII.

Cobden, our oracle, swears it is vanity
Ever to dream of protection again:
Wilson declares it is downright insanity,
Also he proves it by figures and pen.
Sheets arithmetical,
Clearly prophetical,
Flow from the quills of these eminent men.

VIII.

Likewise M'Gregor, that brilliant Glaswegian,
Whom we desiderate always to speak,
Hath, by the aid of some second-sight Stygian,
Promised us shortly two millions per week.
"Whaur shall we pit it, sirs?"—
Wait till you get it, sirs!
Zooks! what a prospect of bubble and squeak!

IX.

As for you paltry persisting Protectionists,
Why should you prate of the labourer's cause?
Don't you observe you are mere Resurrectionists
Trying to get at the grave of the laws?
Honest Peel strangled them,
Then the Whigs mangled them,
Coffined, and sank them with Cobden's applause.

X.

Any such notions I think you had best bury
Deep in the grave where your idol is laid:
Then, from the lips of the member for Westbury,
Take a sound lesson in matters of trade.
List to his prophecies—
We'll keep our offices
Snug, till your final conversion is made.

XI.

Deuce take those breechesless rascals the Highlanders!
Let them go starve on their beggarly hills:
Irish impostors, and kelp-making Islanders,
Can't they find room in our poor-law Bastilles?
Or, for variety,
Though there's satiety,
Let them be packed to the calico mills!

XII.

Wages must tumble, like leaves in a hurricane,
Under this grand competition for work:
Britons shall toil for the Jew and American,
Chinaman, Spaniard, Mulatto, and Turk—
Each village Hannibal,
Fierce as a cannibal,
Eyeing his neighbour like Bishop or Burke!

XIII.

These are the triumphs of science political—
These are the views by the Whigs patronised.
Tories may scout them; but, ne'ertheless, it I call
Such a grand scheme as was seldom devised.
How is it robbery?
Cheapness and jobbery
Are the twin saints whom we've just canonised.

XIV.

Under the free-trading auspices, true it is
Some time or other taxation may pinch.
Then for a shy at the Funds and Annuities!
We'll take a yard since you gave us an inch.
Hush, Mr Newdegate!
Why not repudiate,
Just as was done by the pupils of Lynch?

XV.

Worthy Sir Robert, that statesman immaculate,
Doubled his fortune by doubling the pound:
Even the wisest may sometimes miscalculate—
Surely he will not object to refund?
"That were a merry go!
See you at Jericho!"
O—very well—I abandon that ground.

XVI.

Shortly—I say, with habitual bonhomie,
Everything's quite as we Ministers wish,
Plenty and peace are combined with economy,
Food is abundant—provide you the dish.
Pay to the foreigner,
Peasant and mariner,
All you can raise for your loaf and your fish.

XVII.

Banish all notions of British ascendency,
Let them be wiped from our memory quite;
Modern views have an opposite tendency,
As hath been clearly expounded by Bright.
Let us be sensible—
Britain's defensible,
Not by brute force, but by maxims of right.

XVIII.

We, for the voice of the populace amorous,
Willing to do anything they require,
Shall, if hereafter they chance to grow clamorous,
Yield just precisely the thing they desire:
We are quite ready to
March with a steady toe
Out of the frying-pan into the fire.

XIX.

Stink, like the inmates of Huxtable's piggery,
Up to the knees in an exquisite draff,
Stand the determined apostles of Whiggery,
Chewing the grain, and rejecting the chaff.
Ay, Mr Huxtable!
Not from your muck stable,
Issues so hearty a grunting or laugh!

XX.

This, I maintain, of our state is the very type—
Joseph's fat cattle and atrophied kine.
We, for the first, may be ta'en by Daguerreotype:
Who are the second, you well may divine.
Yea, of a verity!
Britain's prosperity,
Means nothing else than the measure of mine!

MY PENINSULAR MEDAL.
BY AN OLD PENINSULAR.

PART V.—CHAPTER XII.

On reaching the General's quarters, I thought it best not to report myself to his Excellency, till I had seen Captain Gabion again. While waiting in the street, I noticed a small shop, the open window of which exhibited not only a choice assortment of straw cigars, but bread, bacon, sausages, eggs, articles all equally attractive to travellers who had not dined. Reminded, by the sight, that this was precisely my own condition, I stepped in; hoping to find something that might support exhausted nature, during the awful interval that seemed likely to intervene, ere we could halt for the night, and think about cooking. The eggs, white, large, and pellucid, claimed a trial; and the yolk of the first I cracked went down whole like an oyster, with such a delicious gulp, that I was about to attack a second, when I was interrupted by a voice from the back of the shop, "Nó, nó, señor." Looking in that direction, I perceived six or eight persons crouching round a small fire on the hearth. On walking towards them, I found my two Capatazes, and a party of their muleteers, all on a broad grin at my recent exploit in egg-sucking. The Spanish Capataz arose; politely observed that roast eggs are better than raw; and, with equal politeness taking that which I held in my hand, cracked it at one end, and stuck it upright in the hot embers. Fully acquiescing in this arrangement, and determined to carry it out, I was returning to the counter for another egg; but was anticipated by the Capataz, who selected a couple, observing that he had great knowledge in choosing eggs. These he set in the embers, by the side of the former, first opening a safety-valve in each. Never having known, before, how to roast an egg, I did not regret this lesson in the art of extempore cookery. And I beg to state that a roast egg—so roasted, i. e. done slowly in the embers, "ovum ad prunas cocked 'em" (you see, the Romans also set them upright)—not only is altogether a different sort of thing from a boiled egg, but beats it to sticks: especially if washed down, as mine were on the present occasion, with a cup or two of good sound Spanish wine out of a leathern bag. For the Capataz, insisting that eating without drinking was bad for the digestion, transferred the wine from the leather to the horn, with an air of benignity that was perfectly irresistible. In short, he would take no denial. I was also glad of this little rencontre in the shop, for another reason—because it tended to establish amicable relations between me and the muleteers, which was just what I wanted. Having chatted a few minutes with my polite entertainers, I thanked them for their cortesia, and walked towards the counter, to settle for the eggs. How now? There's nothing to settle! The eggs are paid for! This was a touch of high Spanish breeding, that quite took me by surprise—I demurred. The big jolly old Spaniard, though, stepped forward with his hand on his breast, self-congratulation twinkling in his eyes, and a profusion of very profound but silent bows. I really could not find it in my heart to break his, by saying anything more about the eggs. In short, I and all the muleteers gradually became very good friends; and as for my entertainer on the present occasion, had he known I was thinking of buying a mule, I have no manner of doubt he would forthwith have made me a bonâ fide offer of the best in his batch, and thanked me for accepting it.

Just as I emerged from the shop, Jones came pelting by on the pony—pulled up the moment he saw me—and owned himself conscience-stricken by rushing into self-vindication. "Please, sir, I jest only brought the poor hannibal here from the river, sir; 'cause why, sir?—'cause I thought you had done with him, sir. Been all about, looking for a stable, sir. Can't find no corner nowhere, not to shove the poor hannibal in, sir. Couldn't you be so kind and speak to that 'ere hofficer, sir? Have'nt had no time to think of cooking dinner, sir. Very long march we've had to-day, sir. Very bad thing sitch long marches for poor soldiers, sir. Got a bullet in my leg, sir."

"Well," said I, "you've no occasion to trouble yourself about dinner, nor yet about a stable. I expect we have at least two leagues more to cover, before we halt for the night."

Jones tuned as black as thunder. His look was perfectly savage.

"Well, Jones, it can't be helped, man. You yourself must see there's not room for us here."

"Please, sir," replied Jones, "I know there isn't, sir. Only I thought p'rhaps you'd speak to the hofficer, sir. And in course, as he's a friend, I thought he'd see to it, sir, and make room, sir."

"No, no—I tell you it won't do. As soon as the men have got their rations, we must move on."

The word "rations" wrought an immediate change in Jones's agonising visage. "Oh, very well, sir," said he—"then we gits our rations here, does we, sir? Please, sir, if I might make bold to aast the question—which is it, sir?"

"Which is it? I suppose beef as usual; bread if they've got any. I don't know what else it's likely to be."

"Beg your pardon, sir," replied Jones; "but I did'nt mean about the whittles, sir. What I means is the liquor, sir. 'Cause p'rhaps its that 'ere poor, nasty, green, hungry, skinny wine as we got in Spain, sir; that what giz the men the hayger, sir. Or p'rhaps, may be, its sperrits, sir; if so be we've come into the brandy, what the men gits here in France, sir. That's the liquor to march upon, sir. Fine rations thim is for poor soldiers, sir. Oh, be-youti-ful, sir! Takes the skin off the roof of your mouth, sir."

"Well; we shall soon see which it is."

"Yes, sir," said Jones in a lower voice, coming nearer, and touching his peak. "But please, sir, that isn't what I meant to hintimate, sir. Please, sir, wouldn't you have the kineness, sir, and jest speak a word to the hofficer for the fut-soldiers, sir. 'Cause p'rhaps the rations is only some on it sperrits, sir; not enough for all on us, fut and horse, sir. Please, sir, only because we poor fut-soldiers wants it more, sir; 'cause, ye see, we goes on fut, sir; which them fellers doesn't want it as doesn't go on fut, sir; 'cause they rides, sir."

"No, no; I'm not going to interfere in a thing of that sort; nor is it likely the Captain would. Besides, what could he do?"

"What could he do, sir?" said Jones. "Bless your heart, sir, if he chose to speak a word for me, sir, he could git me a horder to ride a mule all the way to headquarters, sir; one of the spare uns, sir. Got a bullet in my leg, sir."

"Well, Jones, how did you get it? You haven't told me that yet."

"Oh, nothing pertikler more than others, sir. Got it near Pampelona, sir. That 'ere Ginneral Soult thought he was too many for us, sir; but we soon let him see as we was too many for him, sir. Please, sir, I laid eighteen hours on the ground, sir, afore I was picked up, sir. The wolves came down in the night, and smelt to me, sir."

Our disquisition was interrupted by the approach of Captain Gabion.

"I've settled it for you," said the Captain. "Have you seen the General?"

"I wished to ask you about it first. Any particular etiquette?"

"Oh yes," said the Captain; "I forgot to tell you. Please mind. When you've reported yourself, if his Excellency remains silent, and takes no notice, bolt. If he remains silent, but looks up at you, back slowly towards the door, looking at him. If he looks up at his aide-de-camp, keep where you are, don't stir. Perhaps the aide will take you to the window, or into another room, and ask you a question or two."

The actual interview, though, did not terminate precisely as the Captain anticipated. I was ushered into a small parlour, and there found two military officers. One of them, the General in command of the British forces before Bayonne, Sir John Hope, was reclining on a sofa. He had not yet recovered from the severe wound in the ankle received in December, near Barrouilhet; and his countenance bore the marks of illness—perhaps it might be said, of suffering. Yet his aspect, even in the attitude of repose, at once arrested the eye. Tall, athletic, and dignified,

"He lay like a warrior taking his rest,
With his martial cloak around him."

I saw before me one of the bravest, the most distinguished, the most trusted of the Generals who fought and conquered under Wellington; him whom Wellington himself had pronounced the "ablest officer in the army." Little did I dream that, in less than five weeks from this very interview, when war was supposed to be at an end, and ere he had fully recovered from his present injury, he was to be roused—perhaps from that couch—by martial sounds at dead of night, to be wounded a second time, taken prisoner, and carried off in triumph into the city which he now besieged! The other person present was an aide-de-camp, who sat at a table writing. I reported myself and party.

"Yes, I have heard, sir," said his Excellency, speaking, apparently, with some degree of effort. "Should have been happy to have given you quarters here to-night; but it's impossible: we are quite full. You must proceed, with your convoy and escort, till you regain the high-road, then take the first quarters you can find. Every man's good wishes will attend you, for you bring what we are all in want of. To-morrow you will have all the easier march to Dax. Do not, on any account, go further than Dax to-morrow: that is where you are to be to-morrow night. I wish you to be particular in attending to this. Good afternoon, sir."

On returning to the street, I found our whole party far more reconciled than I had expected to the idea of proceeding. Mr Chesterfield had already remounted. The mules had now been kept standing, with their loads on their backs, more than half-an-hour; and the two Capatazes received the announcement with great equanimity, each after the manner of his own nation. The Spaniard, as gravely as though uttering some time-honoured adage of his race, observed that a long march to-day makes a short march to-morrow, and that travelling tires a loaded mule, but resting kills him; while the Portuguese contented himself with a shrug of the shoulders and a paciencia—the two great remedies of his countrymen for all the troubles that flesh is heir to. Jones stood close at my elbow, with a face as festive now as it was ruthful not long before. "Please, sir," said he, "it's sperrits for all the party, sir. The hofficer has done it very handsome, sir. Don't care now if we marches all night, sir."

Just as we were moving, I was joined once more by Captain Gabion, who came on with us a little way, walking by the side of my pony, and bearing in his hand a small parcel. "You can't imagine, Mr Y——," said he, "how very much I feel annoyed that we can't accommodate you."

"Pray, don't mention it," said I. "In two or three hours we shall be under cover."

"Yes," replied the captain, in a consolatory tone. "But then it's such a shocking bad evening. Why, you'll be drenched to the skin."

"Well, never mind that. I must change when I get in."

"Ah! but then you'll find it such a dreadful road," said he. "The lane is nothing but slush and quagmire from one end to the other."

"No matter. We must pick our way through it as well as we can, and get out of it as soon as possible."

"Yes," said he, "so you must. But then it's so dismally long—a league and a half, if not near upon two."

"No matter, no matter; we shall find the end of it, sooner or later, I hope."

"How unfortunate, though, you ride a pony!" said he. "Why, you'd get through a thousand times better on horseback. You'll be caked with dirt up to your middle."

"Oh, never mind that. Dirt will brush off."

"Ah! I only wish you could have started earlier," said the captain. "It's now just upon sunset; and, with such a night as this, in another half-hour or so you'll have it pitch-dark."

"Well, we must do the best we can, you know. If we can't see our way, we must feel it."

"Yes, that's just what I was thinking," said he. "You'll have to grope for it, no doubt. But then, unfortunately, from the present state of the road, you'll find that far from agreeable. One time you'll lay hold of a dead bullock; another, of a dead man."

"Never mind, never mind. Of course, in the dark, we shan't be able to tell the difference, so it won't matter which."

"Hang it all!" said Captain Gabion. "I can't express to you how vexed I feel on your account. Why, I came through this lane myself a day or two ago, and could hardly get along, though it was daylight. What will you ever do, with all this convoy at your heels, passing it by night? Why, it's darker already than when you started."

"Well, at any rate we shall have a hedge on each side of us. That will tell us where we are, if we have no other clue."

"Yes, yes," said he; "very true; so it will. It's dreadful slow work, though, feeling your way, after dark, through a long, puddly lane, knee-deep in mire, by the help of the hedge—especially if there happens to be a ditch between, which you'll find to be the case. In short, I'm so perfectly convinced you'll be stuck for the night, I shall make a point to-morrow of sending a working party, before noon, if possible, to dig you all out; that is, if you are to be found above the surface. If not, you know, we must bore for you, or sink a shaft."

"Thank you, thank you; much obliged. Hope you'll remember and send some breakfast at the same time."

"Why, Mr Y——," roared Captain Gabion, bursting into an incontrollable fit of laughter, "I really do think you'll make a good campaigner in time—that is, if you have practice enough. Well, now I must say good evening, and leave you to pursue your journey. My boots are thin, and the lane is getting soppy. By the bye, Mr Y——, I don't suppose I have anything to offer that you are not well provided with; but allow me to ask, how are you off for cigars?"

"Cigars? Of course, in France, cigars may be bought anywhere and everywhere. Haven't above a day's provision, if I have that."

"Oh! haven't you, though?" said Captain Gabion. "Then just do me the favour to accept of this small package. You'll find them capital—Spanish cigars. Here, let me stow them in your coat pocket. That's it. No fear of their getting wet. It's a small box, lined with metal. Let me advise you: never smoke a French cigar, except when you can't get Spanish: enough to make a horse sick. How do you suppose I obtained them? One of the staff was sent into Bayonne with a flag of truce: found the French officers living like princes: happened to say, no good cigars to be got outside. Didn't they laugh at him? Gave him a dozen little boxes, though; did them up for him in a wrapper of skyblue silk. Don't you call that handsome? I got two of the boxes: that in your pocket is one. Good night."

It soon became too evident, as we proceeded on our march, that Captain Gabion had given no exaggerated description of the route now before us. The surface of the soil, near the river, was a loose sand or rubble. But this gradually disappeared in the lane, and was succeeded by a subsoil of thick clay, equally soft, soppy, and tenacious—poached, too, by the passage of cavalry and commissariat bullocks, and trenched by waggons and artillery. There were, indeed, but few parts of the road, except where it was actually kneaded into slush, traversed by water-courses, or occupied all across by plashy inundations, where a careful walker might not have picked his way, without absolute danger of detention or absorption. But, with a party like ours, picking was not always so easy. Regularity there was none; each managed for himself as he was able. With all the disadvantage of her little feet, Nanny managed best; where she could not walk, she jumped. Next to her, in succession, the infantry and muleteers did tolerably well: the mules did better than could be expected. The riders got on worst of any. Our line became considerably extended. Here there was a stoppage; there a break; and the length of road which we occupied far exceeded marching order. Superintendence became next to impracticable; for, in so narrow a space, with a hedge and ditch on each side, it was no easy matter to pass from one part of the line to another. Two or three times, I noticed, Corporal Fraser made his way to the head of the column; and, standing up when he found a place, allowed the whole to pass, counting the mules, as on our previous day's march. Seeing the impossibility of preserving strict regularity, Mr Chesterfield requested me to proceed in front with a few of the men, while he brought up the rear, that, at least, all might be kept together. I accordingly made my way forwards, and led the march, receiving occasional communications from Corporal Fraser. Our difficulties, however, increased as we advanced. Daylight rapidly declined—twilight was short—it fell dark. Fancy, under such circumstances, a party like ours, horsemen, footmen, mules, muleteers, floundering about in a narrow lane, which, in fact, was an elongated bog; the rain coming down in torrents; the muleteers now shouting, now screaming; the soldiers, horse and foot, making their way onwards, as best they could, in silence; with every now and then a stoppage, from a mule that had stuck fast, or fallen under its burden—objects not distinguishable, barely discernible—and, where the road was overhung with trees, all gloom around; nothing visible but the faint, uncertain glimmer beyond. The behaviour of the soldiers, on the whole, I must say, was such as to do them credit. Now and then a fellow broke away through the hedge, in hope of finding a better road on the other side. But that was generally more toil than profit. They came upon unexpected obstacles, and had to return into the lane. In fact, this, I take it, is a maxim in marching: Unless you know the country, and know it well, however bad the road, keep it; don't straggle, or try short cuts.

Riding on at the head of the party, I attempted to pick my way as far as I could see it, by making Sancho go as I thought best. This led to frequent contests between Sancho and me. Sometimes he had his way, and we got on well. Sometimes I was positive and had mine, which generally led to a plunge and a splash. Tired of this, I dismounted and led him. Still it was troublesome work. Sancho thought he knew better than I did; and often, when I pulled one way, he pulled the other. At length I gave up the contest, led him with a slack rein, and pulled no longer. This was just what he wanted; and, left to himself, he picked his way admirably. I noticed, as we passed, several such obstructions as Captain Gabion had described; and, once or twice, came very disagreeably in contact with them. At length I stumbled over I knew not what, and almost fell; took hold of something on the ground: it was a cold hand that did not return my grasp! Are you a poor man? Do you shake hands with rich men? You will understand the kind of thing. Not relishing such salutations, I was induced to try a different dodge; and, finding that Sancho went very well with a slack rein while I walked, thought perhaps he might still do the same if I mounted. Turning for that purpose, I saw, close at hand, in the gloom of night, what looked very like a ghost!—the ghost of myself! Here was I, bridle in hand, standing at Sancho's head. And there was I, alter ego, mounted on Sancho's back! While I looked, my mounted double suddenly disappeared! The spectral evaporation was attended with a wallop in the mud; then, close behind Sancho's heels, arose the same dark figure from the earth—and as it rose it spoke! "Please, sir, I only got across him jest to keep him steady sir, going through the mud, sir. Hope no offence, sir. Got a bullet in my leg, sir." True to his principle, of never walking when he could ride, and, dark as it was, detecting an empty saddle, Jones had promptly occupied it; and, repressing his usual loquacity, had been riding close behind me, a silent spectator of all my pedestrian misadventures. On my turning to mount, conscious guilt, as it always did when he was taken en flagrant delit, threw him off his guard; and, too much flurried to alight in the usual way, he had effected a retrograde descent, by a parabolic flight over the pony's tail. The impetus thus acquired carried him further than he intended. He fell soft; but he fell—not on his feet. Perceiving by my laughter that I bore no malice, he promptly stepped forward, rubbed his hands on his trousers, helped me to mount, and walked on by my side. "Please, sir," said he, "I'm afeared I've split 'em, sir. It did come so very cold when I squattered down in the puddle, sir."—(No reply.)

"Please, sir, I'm thinking we shan't want good quarters when we gits furder on, sir." (Pause.) "Nor yit nothing what soldiers wants, when we gits well on into France, sir." (Another pause.) "Please, sir, I'm thinking its very cruel on service, sir, when there's whittles and drink, plenty on it, close to hand, sir, as they won't let poor soldiers help themselves, sir."

"Oh, then I suppose the soldiers never do."

"Please, sir, I s'pose they don't; not never, sir. In course not, sir. But then it's this, sir. If the Provost comes and you're cotched, sir, why, it's a couple of dozen for only taking an old shutter to bile a kittle, sir."

"Tight hand, the Provost-marshal?"

"Once, I was inamost cotched myself, sir. Please, sir, it was three on us, as got into a farm-house, sir; an empty house, what wasn't inhabited, sir. Looked up the chimbly, sir; 'cause that's where they hangs up the yams to smoke 'em, sir. There they was, sir; oh, sich a lot on 'em, as you couldn't count 'em, sir. So I fixes bagonets, and forks down a pair on 'em, sir: and jest as I was a-going to fork down another for myself, sir, along come the Provost, sir. So he see the window open, sir; 'cause the door was fastened, sir; so we got in at the window, sir. So he got in too, sir. The other fellows was cotched, and got it, sir; but I wasn't, sir; so I didn't, sir."

"Turn king's evidence?"

"Please, sir, it wasn't not likely as I should do that, sir; 'cause I scorns any sitch low-lived ways, sir. Only when I heard the Provost a-coming, sir, I got up into the chimbly, sir; and when he was gone, sir, why then I got down agin, sir. Got safe back to quarters, sir, with a yam under my greet-coat, sir."

"Of course the inhabitants must be protected, and so must their property."

"Well, p'rhaps they must if they're frinds, sir; though I nivver see'd what frinds the Spaniards was to me, sir. But here in France, where us now be, sir, I doesn't see why poor soldiers shouldn't help themselves, sir; and men's bin scragged for it, sir, let alone the Provost, sir."

"I trust we shall find the people here, if we treat them well, better friends than you did the Spaniards."

"Please, sir, if two hofficers dines togither four or five times a-week, sir, that's what I calls being friends, sir. Hope I shall find plenty sitch, and you too, sir. Hope no offence, sir." (Pause.) "Might I make bold to aast the question, sir? The men says, as soon as we jines, we shall move on aginst the hinnimy, sir."

"Shouldn't wonder."

"Please, sir, I should like to pick off that 'ere feller as put a bullet into me, sir; jest knock him over, sir, as he did me, sir."

"Sure you would know him again, though?"

"No doubt of that, sir. I know him by the way he cocks his eye down on his firelock, sir. Could pick him out of a whole ridgment on 'em, sir."

We had now been toiling on, through mire and puddles, for about a brace of hours; and I know not how much longer our conference might have continued; but, looking forwards, at a part where the lane was more than usually darkened by over-arching trees, I perceived, at the extremity of the vista, a light less dim than hitherto. Hurra! we had reached the main road. I passed the intelligence; a shout ran down the line, and came back to us from the rear; and, reaching at length the paved highway—it was like landing on terra firma, I took my stand to the right of the embouchure, while weary men and weary beasts slowly and successively emerged from the dark recess, and filed off to the left along the road. At this moment the rain began to moderate; the clouds lifted in the east; the blowzy moon looked down on us from silver peaks, that crested the distant Pyrenees; and, favoured by her light, after an additional half-hour's marching we reached our halting-place. Mr Chesterfield and I established headquarters at a small auberge, stowed the money-boxes, saw to the accommodation of the party, and were fortunate enough to secure a couple of rooms, each with a comfortable bed.

Walking down into the lower part of the house, I found Jones already at work, busying himself, much to the amusement of the ménage, in unbidden preparations for my evening meal. He had cut the ration beef into large uncouth dabs, which he called beef-steaks, and was banging away at them with a rolling-pin on the dresser, in the vain hope of subduing them to tenderness. Alas, what could be done with beef, that had said "moo" that forenoon? While this operation was in progress, a smart fillette looked smiling on, as if anxious to take a lesson in cookery à l'Anglaise. Fancying that Jones had intruded on an office which she considered her own, I asked whether I could have anything else? "Anything Monsieur pleased." Bravo! I was now among the Gascons. Well but, what could I have?—"For example, a poulet, dressed any way Monsieur preferred—potage, in every variety—omelets—she made twenty-three different sorts. Her brother, who was cook to the hotel at Mont de Marsan, made twenty-nine." Very well, suppose we try all three, potage, poulet, omelet:—the façon of each at your discretion;—only, if you please, as soon as possible; to be ready with the biftek (which, I perceived, would be impregnable.) "All should be ready, in a solitary moment."—What wine could I have? She referred me to the landlord, a pleasant-looking old gentleman in a blouse, very pursy about the neck, chest, and chin, who sat in a corner of the hearth. "Any wine I liked, French or foreign." Go it again, Gascony!—Could I have a bottle of bordeaux? "Superb."—These weighty matters arranged, I returned to the first floor; and heard, on my way up stairs, the screams of a luckless hen, which my mandate had sentenced to prompt execution in the poultry-yard.

I had not ordered dinner, however, with an eye to self alone: and was thinking whether it would not be proper to wait on my fellow-lodger, and report proceedings, when Jones followed me to my door. "Please, sir," said he, "the hofficer's kit is left behind, sir. His man isn't come up, nor yet his mule, not nayther on 'em, sir." This intelligence was decisive: I knocked at the entrance of the Hon. Mr Chesterfield's apartment. Found him rather disposed, though, to live alone. "His man would be up ere long. He was much obliged to me." Well; perhaps I had taken a liberty. Almost before I had completed the twofold process of shifting and scrubbing, the cloth was laid. The bread and bordeaux were first on the table; then the potage.—Presently came the poulette and the beefsteak—then the omelet;—in short, I had dined. Suffice it to say, the bordeaux was very respectable; but the beefsteak impracticable, and the poulette questionable. It had been cut into small pieces, and broiled. The potage and the omelet were the staple of my meal. Obs. 1.—When travelling in France, should you order an omelet at a roadside inn, let it by all means be the omelette au jambon. They will offer you a choice of twenty or thirty sorts; but that's the kind you are most likely to get good, and that you may get everywhere. Obs. 2.—Though a fowl dressed as I have described is not very tempting in appearance, especially if you have been cognisant of its recent slaughter, give me leave to observe, the dish, in a general way, is by no means unworthy of your attention; indeed, is one of the best the rural cuisine of France has to offer. And, let me tell you, the rural cuisine of France far excels the civic cuisine that we sometimes meet with out of France. Obs. 3.—With regard to wine,—I asked for bordeaux. That, I admit, was flat. But make allowance; I was inexperienced; this was the first time I ordered dinner on Gallic ground. The fact is—and, if you travel in France and ramble about in country places, so you will find it—the white wine at a given price is decidedly better than the red at the same price. Thus, say the price you choose to go to for a bottle of wine is three francs: and I call that quite enough—for, if you say six, seven, eight francs, it comes from the same bin. Well, order white; and you probably get, for your three francs, a bottle of good sound wine. Order red; and, ten to one, it's horrid. Perhaps, however, you choose to pay for colour; you prefer red. Well, as you please. Only in that case, remember: you are responsible for the consequences, not I.

As I sat on three chairs after dinner in dreamy repose, sipping the last of my bottle of bordeaux, and revolving the events of the day, Jones entered, licking his lips. Really he looked, already, ten per cent better than when we crossed the Bidassoa—his complexion fresher and more wholesome, his aspect decidedly less misanthropic;—I began to imagine some truth in his theory, that English soldiers, who had served in Spain, grew fat on entering France. He laid hands, without ceremony, on the garments which I had doffed before dinner, and walked away with them. Rain and mud, indeed, had horribly maltreated them; and Jones, holding out the coat at arm's length, inspected it in silence, as he moved towards the door.

How beguile the hours till bed-time? I looked out. What a lovely night! The silent moonbeams fell on the paved court at the entrance of our inn. Beyond, all was luminous, but indistinct. Below, there was an open doorway, with a seat—a curious old carved concern,—the very place, the very hour, for a cigar! A cigar? Why, I've a box-full! Come, Mons. Thouvenot; we'll see what sort of havannahs you smoke there in Bayonne.

The havannahs were prime—the forenoon had been fatiguing—I had dined. A pleasing languor repaid the toils of the morning. Soon, though, it was broken, by the sound of distant violins—not badly handled, neither. This part of France is the land of the violin: you find a decent performer in every village. The sound proceeded from the premises at the back of the auberge; and I had previously noticed some of the villagers gliding into the inn-yard by a side entrance. Impelled by curiosity, I took the liberty of following their example; and soon found my way, amongst stables and out-houses, to a small gate opening into a garden or shrubbery, at which gate sat my jovial friend the landlord, dispensing tickets of admission, refreshments included, at six sous each. It was a sort of rural salon de danse, where the villagers met nightly, to exhibit and cultivate their national nimbleness of toe. Much preferring these rural fêtes to a regular French ball, I have attended at many a guinguette since; but as this was the first, and had all the piquancy of a surprise, I beg leave to give you a short description. Passing on through an alley among the trees, and guided by the mellow note of the violin, I soon reached the ball-room, which was simply a large boarded square, with a roof above, but three sides open,—the fourth was the orchestra. There I found assembled the youth of the village, and not only the youth, but some of their elders—three violins in full operation—and the ball at its height. Cotillons were the order of the day, much like those which had been introduced into the aristocratic circles of England two or three years before, say 1811, or 1812, under the name of quadrilles. The dancing was good, really good—time admirable—no mistakes—no confusion—all could dance. The deportment of the dancers, too, was in perfect good keeping. Not a gaucherie did I witness, throughout the evening. With one thing I was struck: and that was, the attention, the seriousness, the almost solemnity, with which the whole party applied themselves to the important business of dancing. Dancing, if it be, among the higher classes of France, an amusement, with the rural population is a passion: and, in a nation so volatile, the earnest gravity of their village assemblées is the more observable. Of the three violins, one, I soon perceived, had the chief authority. With a voice of command, he directed the various movements, indicated changes of figure, regulated the whole proceedings. In fact, he was not only, as it turned out, leader of the orchestra, but dancing-master to the village—"Vir gregis ipse caper:" and, had he been Grand Turk, he could not have issued his mandates in a more imperious tone, or to more obedient subjects.—Never go to France again, without attending a village dance at a guinguette. If you have not seen that, you have not seen one most interesting phase of Gallic character.

Among the belles of the evening, there was one, you rogue! taller than the rest, that both attracted my attention, and fixed it. She not only danced well—they all did that—she danced with an air. Nay, shall I tell the whole truth? She bore a resemblance, or at least I fancied so, to the admired of all eyes, the lovely Juno, with whom I had crossed the Bay of Biscay. Near me danced a lusty Adonis of five-and-forty, who was decidedly the best male performer of the party. I had already made two or three acquaintances; and, as he swept by me in the whirl of his evolutions, I could not help saying, "You dance well, Monsieur." He, with the honest, open-hearted vanity of a Frenchman and a Gascon, danced with redoubled energy, to confirm my good opinion. Presently the set concluded; and the next moment he was at my side in a high state of exhilaration, mopping and breathless. "Eh bien! Monsieur—Our dancing—what do you think of it?"

"Excellent. The ladies dance admirably. Of the male performers, truth compels me to avow that you are incomparably the best."

"You dance?"

"Might a stranger presume—?"

"Ah, Monsieur, but what an honour to our ball! Hold! I shall find you a vis-à-vis."

"Might one select?"

"She's yours for the evening! Name her! I fly!"

"Her with the blue sash, large eyes, rather tall—"

"Ah! my cousin! Wait a little moment! 'Tis done!"

The violins struck up; again the sets were formed; with the partner of my choice, I stood up for a cotillon. Had danced the same figures in England; so got on tolerably well.

I say, though, what's this? The time has changed! Half a second ago, it was one, two, three, four. Now it's one, two, three! The figure—that's different too! Why, what's come to them all? Two and two, swimming round and round! Gyration and rotation at once—the planetary system! I turned to my fair partner—she turned to me—I clasped a lovely arm-full—she dropped her hand upon my shoulder—I was fairly in for it. We whirled away with the rest. First it was to German strains, soft, equable, and mellifluous. Then, with a shout from Mons. Caper, the tune suddenly changed. It now was Spanish—soft and equable no longer—a mad, galloping capriccio, all tingling with life, point, and mettle. She entered into the spirit of it. I soon discovered that,—so kept her up to it, till she cried "enough!" in earnest. But oh! the difference between such a partner, and a bouncer! Oh! the difference between such a partner, and a bolter! Oh! the ease, the ductility, the lightness, the perfect airiness of her step! She waltzed like a zephyr!

Farewell, charming Gasconne! Farewell, bewitching partner of an hour! Farewell, too, energetic and laborious dancer, my partner's middle-aged fussy cousin! Farewell, at least, till we meet again, under somewhat altered circumstances. Before you, too, Monsieur Caper, before you, orchestral umpire! terpsichorean autocrat!—before you, on retiring for the night, I make, en passant, with all the company, a profound obeisance.—In short, I then and there literally fell in love with the Gascon character; and the more I saw of them afterwards, the more I liked them.

On the way to my apartment that night, I fell in with Jones, who informed me, with great apparent concern, that the servant and his kit had not yet come up; and that he "was afeared the hofficer had made his dinner off of bread and cheese."

CHAPTER XIII.

Jones entered my room early in the morning, with the garments which had so direly suffered, the day before, by spattering mud and pelting rain. They were now perfectly presentable; and not only that, but thoroughly dry.

"Well, Jones, I see you've given them a good brushing."

"Wouldn't have bin of no use, sir. Took and washed 'em, sir. Done it last night, sir."

"How did you get them dry, then?"

"Please, sir, I had 'em down to the kitchen fire the first thing this morning, sir—before daylight, sir."

"I say, Jones, how did you manage these gloves?"

"Please, sir, I washed 'em and put 'em on, sir. Walked about with them on my hands till they was dry, sir."

"Why did you turn out so early, man? Don't suppose we shall start before noon."

"Please, sir, 'cause I wanted to git forward with my wuk, sir; 'cause to-day I wants to turn out tidy myself, sir. Got a bit of tailoring to do, sir, 'cause of the haccident off the pony, sir. Thousand pities they don't cut the soldiers' jackits longer behind, sir."

"Why turn out tidy to-day in particular?"

"Please, sir, 'cause I understands we're like to meet the hinnimy, sir. Should wish to die dacent, sir."

"Well, get on, then. Here, stop. Take this; and see if you can't find somebody to do your tailoring in the village."

"Thank ye, sir; pertlickler obleeged to ye, sir; thank ye, sir." Then, having pocketed the francs, "Please, sir, though, with your pimmission, sir, I'd rayther do the job of tailoring myself, sir."

"Oh, very well, if you choose to turn tailor. Just as you please."

Jones was about to withdraw—but paused. There was a moment of internal struggle.

"Please, sir," said he, "it's what I ham, sir. Sarved my prentice, sir. Only I don't know what ivver I shall do for a goose, sir."

"I say, Jones, what's that you were saying just now about meeting the enemy? What enemy?"

"Please, sir, I don't know nothing about it, only this, sir. The fellers as is here told our fellers, sir, as a Frinch party sprised a Portygee party, sir, in a village not two leagues off, sir, only three days ago, sir. Took or killed them all, sir. Druv some on 'em into the stable of the inn, sir; and bagonetted them under the manger, sir."

"Oh, they did, did they? Then let me have my breakfast in about half-an-hour."

"Please, sir, I'll go at once and give Nanny her milking, sir. She wants it dreadful, sir."

While concluding my toilet, I noticed the merry chirp of children at play, which came in through the open window. Gradually it grew louder and more uproarious: there was evidently some unusual source of festivity. I looked out; the cause was manifest. Nanny, in the highest possible state of good humour, now making believe to butt, now running backwards, now stamping, now caprioling, now erect, with a languishing turn of her head and her fore-legs gracefully doubled down, was surrounded with a host of jocund juveniles, who broke forth into fresh shouts of mirth and marvel, at every variation in her attitude. In the midst of this hilarity, Jones rushed forth from the inn door, bearing in one hand a small three-legged stool, and in the other a can. Did you ever see a goat milked? Nanny at once became sedate—a fixture. Jones placed the three-legged stool behind her, and the can between her hind legs. Goats, my dear madam, are not milked sideways, like cows. The milking began. This process effected a total change of deportment in the small rabble that stood looking on. Before, all was noise and fun. Now, every tongue was still, every movement suspended. Twenty little urchins stood grouped in silent observation; twenty little pairs of eyes stood wide open. Curiosity had superseded frolic; each was receiving an idea! As the operation proceeded, a snow-white head of milky foam rose mantling in the can. Then rose, too, the shout of joyous surprise. However, the younkers soon discovered, with the intuitive tact of children, that nothing new remained to be seen; so their thoughts reverted to sport. Hand joined in hand, the toddling multitude, that, for facility of inspection, had gathered in Jones' rear, began to deploy. A circle was gradually formed, with Jones and Nanny in the centre. Two or three voices commenced a chant; the rest joined in; the circle began to move with measured tread; and Jones, ere he had finished his task, was encompassed with a ring of merry dancers and singers, who seemed resolved to make him pay toll, or keep him prisoner. Jones, however, was too much of a general for that. Watching his opportunity, he threw a warm jet of milk into the eyes of a flaxen-haired urchin; and, profiting by the temporary confusion and delight which ensued, broke the line of circumvallation, and made good his retreat into the house with stool and can, followed by a tumultuous throng, some pulling the skirts of his jacket, some punching, some shouting, some jumping and clapping their sides in an ecstasy of delight.

The missing servant, though—that was an awkward business. Night had passed—morning had returned; it was now eight o'clock—still no servant came. The whole party unaccounted for amounted to four; namely, 1, the servant himself, an English groom, very much disposed to have his own way, and quite green as a campaigner; 2, the horse which the servant rode; 3, the mule which carried the officer's baggage; 4, a Portuguese lad, the mule's driver. Mr Chesterfield was disposed to take a party of the dragoons, and go back himself in search of them. But, under all the circumstances of the case, I felt it my duty respectfully to intimate a doubt as to the advisableness of his separating from the party which he commanded, and from the treasure which we had in charge; and, on a moment's consideration, he saw the force of the suggestion. At length it was decided to send a corporal and four men, who started in search of the absentees, with a charge, whether successful or not, to be back before noon. We were bound to reach our next halting-place that night; and this was still more indispensable, after the strict injunctions I had received the day before. The detachment, therefore, set out; but our preparations proceeded for marching at the appointed hour.

These matters arranged, I bent my steps towards the shrubbery, intending to take a daylight view of the previous evening's ball-room. In the shrubbery I had not proceeded far, when, much to my surprise, I heard, lustily chanted, an old English stave—

"Oh, what a fine world, this we live in,
To lend in, to spend in, to give in!
But to beg, or to borrow, or get a man's own,
'Tis the very worst world that ever was known."

The songster of the grove, it soon became apparent, was Jones. I saw him before he saw me. On a line, stretched between two trees, he had suspended by far the greater portion of his wardrobe,—that part which he still had on being equally light and scanty,—and, while busily engaged in his preparations to "turn out tidy" and "die dacent," now inspecting, now polishing, in a high state of exhilaration, he was carolling away, very much to his own satisfaction, at the top of his voice. The next strain was different:—

"When last I attempted your pity to move,
Your scorn but augmented my cares.
Perhaps it was right to dissemble your love;
But why did you kick me down stairs?"

The last line he twanged out with great pathos, not forgetting the repeat:—

"But why did you—why did you—kick me down stairs?"

Then, stepping back a few paces, and complacently viewing his work, he suddenly threw himself into an attitude, extended one arm, and commenced a soliloquy:—

"What's life? A book; a pictur-book, a purty pictur-book! But, ah me, jest like other pictur-books! All the picturs at the beginning! Heavy reading's the rest on it; so I finds at least. Pertickerly when you've got a hempty backy-box, and can't git no good pigtail, not for love nor money, let alone shag. Thim straws, I considers, is renk pyzon."

A quick march, stoutly whistled, sufficed to dispel these melancholy thoughts. Then followed a touch of the comic. Jones, it was clear, had been a witness of the preceding night's ball. Holding out, with bowed arms, the corners of a not very presentable shirt, which—excuse me if I'm too particular—hung loose from his shoulders, and mimicking the airs of a dancing belle, he sang:—

"Hands across, back again, down the middle—
'Please to make room, for I'm going to faint.'
'Don't scream so loud, Miss; I can't hear the fiddle.'
'Ma'am, you're quite rude.'—'No, I'm sure I aint.'
The doctor's dancing quite contráry,
Holds his breath, and turns in his toes.
Ranting, prancing, capering Mary
Cocks her chin, and off she goes.

Cross over to Betsy Maginnis,
And foot it again to Major Shaw.
'Miss Molloy, your sweet mouth in a grin is.'
'Mister Mickey, keep off your paw.'
The doctor's dancing quite contráry,
Holds his breath, and turns in his toes.
Ranting, prancing, capering Mary
Cocks her chin, and off she goes.

'Down forty couple, I'm sure will fatigue us.'
'I told you it wouldn't, and here we're come.'
'Ma'am, shall I fetch you a tumbler of negus?'
'No, if you please, sir, a glass of rum.'
The doctor's dancing quite contráry,
Holds his breath, and turns in his toes.
Ranting, prancing, capering Mary
Cocks her chin, and off she goes."

Then, changing both dance and tune, Jones stuck his arms a-kimbo like a Welsh milkwoman, and struck up an aboriginal air of the Principality, footing it heel and toe—words unintelligible. I approached. Jones, as usual, the instant he saw me, fell to self-defence. "Please, sir, I got up into the hayloft, sir: took 'em off, and mended 'em there, sir; 'cause I didn't want none of the fellers to see me a-tailoring, sir. That's why I did it, sir."

"Well, put them on this instant, sir; it's disgraceful. Put them on, I tell you. Be quick."

Jones, seeing I was resolute, presently gave tokens of compliance. "Don't let me find you in that state when I come back," said I.

There was nothing now to wait for, save the absentees. About eleven o'clock, a.m., the dragoons returned. They had gone some distance down the lane, and found nothing. At length, one of them noticed, in the ditch, a trunk, which proved, on examination, to have been broken open and rifled. This they brought back with them; and it announced to us, in language but too intelligible, what had been the probable fate of the party missing.—The fact is, when Mr Chesterfield purchased a mule at St Jean de Luz, for the conveyance of his personal baggage, his servant had discarded the albarda or pack-saddle, determining to load in his own way. Hence, in fact, the loss of the party. The albarda, please to observe, is essential to the serviceableness of your mule. In appearance, no doubt, it is the awkwardest thing in the world. Imagine a hard straw mattress (for it comes nearer that than anything else,) fitted to the animal's back, and covering nearly the whole of it. "Quite absurd," you would say, "to oppress a beast of burden with such an extra load." But then this mattress answers a threefold purpose. First, it keeps the load from galling your mule's back: secondly, it cushions the packages, so that they do not shift: thirdly, and this perhaps is most important of all, it distributes the weight, so that the burden presses equally. Now Mr Chesterfield's personelle was stowed in large awkward black boxes, of the most approved London make, which hung over the mule's back by straps, and of course were continually getting wrong. The inconvenience of this outfit became apparent, ere we were clear of the town of St Jean de Luz. The mule got uneasy; the load shifted; something was continually requiring to be set right. Both mule and driver, horse and groom, soon fell into the rear: the groom blowing up the driver in English, which he didn't understand; the driver bothered with an arrangement, which he knew was all wrong. They came up when we halted, but soon fell behind again. The last time they were seen in the lane, which was just before it fell dark, they were come to a halt, and were all at sixes and sevens. Whether they were killed, or made prisoners, or escaped with the loss of the effects, we never heard or ascertained during the rest of our journey to headquarters.

The packing was now completed with all expedition. By noon we got fairly off; and a march, not quite so short as we expected, brought us to our resting-place for the night.

CHAPTER XIV.

I question if the Gascon character has been duly appreciated. A Gascon is a braggadocio; so we settle it. Now the Gascons are great in this line, it's undeniable. But that which really distinguishes a Gascon, is grandiloquence on all subjects. Whatever the topic of conversation, his style is exaggerated. Tell a Gascon any extraordinary fact, he instantly caps it—tells you something more extraordinary of the same kind. If he happens to be speaking of himself, he still employs the same style of amplification, but only as he would in discussing any subject besides. He possesses also, in an eminent degree, that—(what? frankness, shall I call it?)—at any rate, that peculiar quality, which at once makes you feel as much at ease with him as with an old acquaintance. All the French have this, but the Gascon has it pre-eminently.

My billet for the night was at a seedsman's. Five minutes after my arrival I felt domesticated. He puzzled me not a little though, by eagerly inquiring whether I had ever met in England with a plant called Chou d'Yorck. Its fame had reached him, but the long war had prevented his obtaining a sample. He rejoiced in the prospect of a peace, which would enable him to obtain some Chou d'Yorck. In form he was stiff and stumpy, but in speech and manner lively. To assist him in his shop, he had a youth—age eighteen or nineteen—whom he treated with considerable hauteur. My landlord, his assistant, and myself, all three took our evening meal together; but the youth was not permitted to sit down. Standing near his master, like Corporal Trim, with one foot before the other in an attitude, his head very upright, and his chest projected, he grasped in one hand a hunch of bread and a modicum of sausage, while the other flourished a pocket-knife. His master abruptly handed him a tumbler of wine, without asking him when he would have it; and he forthwith tossed it off, and set down the glass, as if so much and no more was his allowance.

I was amused with my landlord's oration, when I entered his shop and presented my billet. He first read it, then looked at me. "Ah," said he, "in your face, now, I see something, Monsieur, which tells me we shall find you an agreeable inmate. The last Englishman I had conducted himself so badly, I was forced to pitch him out of the window." My landlord had a great penchant, like other Frenchmen of that day, for conversing on the subject of duelling. Asked me if the English did not decide their duels with pistols—were they good shots? I told him the famous wager that had come off not long before, when a crack shot betted to hit with a pistol nineteen oranges out of twenty thrown up in the air—missed the first on purpose to increase the odds—hit the other nineteen. This brought out the Gascon. I had told something extraordinary, he must cap it. "But, Monsieur," said he, "we have, in this place, persons who can hit a butterfly on the wing." (Qui tuent un papillon volant!) He gave me some account of a partisan, who had been active against the English. "Monsieur, he's as brave as a lion; in one word, he's as brave as I am myself," (à tout dire, il est brave comme moi.) One difference between a Gascon and the rest of the world I conceive to be this—that, when other people utter an extravagant or bombastic speech, they generally utter it in a joke; but when a Gascon exaggerates or romances, he speaks with perfect seriousness, and so expects to be taken.

This evening, though, I made a most agreeable discovery. Jones had found stable-room for Sancho in the yard of an inn near my billet. After dinner I stepped out, feeling it necessary, from previous observation, to see that Sancho had his. On reaching the inn-yard, the first thing I saw was just what one often sees at home about suburban public-houses, a party holding an open-air compotation, standing. It was a party of three—an English soldier, an English groom, and a Portuguese youth of twenty, dressed as much like the groom as possible. They stood in a triangle, noses all pointing to the common centre of gravity. Each held a glass, and the English servant a bottle. He, I concluded, "stood it." The soldier was Jones. He was rhetorically holding forth; the other two were earnest listeners—his theme, the battle of Vittoria. My approach broke up the party. I walked direct into Sancho's stable; found his crib empty—no appearance of corn. This might have been accounted for, by supposing the corn already consumed; but Jones couldn't keep his own counsel. He soon put the matter beyond all doubt by rushing in with a sieve-full, which he shot out under the pony's nose, and sedulously dispersed with his hand. The other two went into their own stable: the English groom, I observed, touching his hat. I had seen him somewhere before, but didn't remember, at the moment, time or place.

"Please, sir," said Jones, "both on 'em is sarvant to a jeddleham, sir; a Hinglishman, what's a-going up along with us, sir, 'cause we've got a hescort, sir; 'cause he considers it's more safer than going by his-self, sir. One on 'em's his groom, sir, and the other's his help, sir." The corn stuck in my gizzard, and I made no reply.

"Please, sir, they've got two sitch be-youtiful horses, as nivver you see'd, sir."

"Please, sir, they've got a text-cart, with a kivver to it, sir; whot carries the jeddleham's baggage, sir."

I took my station at the stable-door, to be sure that Sancho not only had his corn, but ate it. The groom, in the adjoining stable, was addressing the help in a kind of perpetual blowing up, a mixture of Portuguese and English; voice deep and hollow. "You Joe King, (Joaquim,) onde está the tobacco-box?"

To this deep-toned bass responded a piping treble—"Ah, I tink you is got it in you brisch-pockit."

"You Joe King, dá cevada to the cavallos, chega the teapot, and don't bother me nada."

Having thus issued his mandate, the groom came forth from the stable. Catching sight of me, he stepped up, and I recognised him at once. Why, it was Coosey, Gingham's Cockney servant, whom I had seen at Lisbon, in the Castle. Glad was I to meet with the man for the sake of his master. Coosey again touched his hat, and respectfully inquired whether I wasn't the gentleman as vos goin hup with a hescort. A conversation ensued, in the course of which I learned, in reply to my eager inquiries, that Gingham was not aware who it was that had charge of the treasure. Gingham merely knew that a convoy was going up; and intended to go in company, for the sake of the guard.

Learning from Coosey that Gingham's quarters were in the suburbs, and not deeming it advisable to go any distance from my charge, I contented myself, for that evening, with sending Gingham a hearty salutation, with a confident hope that I should have the pleasure of his company in the morning. Before bed-time, Coosey brought me a note from Gingham, that he would join me next day just outside the town, and travel in company.

Before quitting the yard, though, I fell in with another acquaintance. The garçon popped out upon me from a side-door; begged to say there was a gentleman in the cuisine, who would be happy to speak to me.

"Who? What is he?"

"A courier, monsieur, employed on an important mission."

"Haven't the pleasure of knowing any gentleman in that line. Describe him."

The garçon laughed; held up one hand, with the forefinger crooked. "Monsieur, voici son nez."

I entered. Ah, it was my friend Hookey. Hookey, you will remember, obtained a passage by the Falmouth packet, as bearer of despatches from Oporto to Lisbon. Probably he was not aware, that doubts were then entertained of his real character; for, on the present occasion, he again announced himself as a courier.

"I am now, monsieur, on my way to the British headquarters, with important despatches from Madrid. You are going there, too." (Who told you that, friend Hookey?) "I, as I travel post, shall arrive there first. Don't you see what an excellent opportunity, if you wish to announce yourself? I shall take charge of your letter, and deliver it with supreme felicity."

"Much obliged. They probably know all about me."

"But, monsieur," said Hookey, "headquarters are now advanced from St Sever to Aire, or soon will be." (Pray, Mr Hookey, how do you know, if you come post from Madrid?) "Why not cut right across, then, and go to Aire by the nearest road? Why go round by St Sever? Your route is by St Sever, I understand?"

Wondering how Hookey understood anything of the matter, and not choosing to convert his understanding into certainty, I merely replied, that wherever a man is going, of course he would wish to take the best road.

"Yes, monsieur," said Hookey, "that is incontestable. But the best road is, evidently, the most direct. Why march on the arc, when you can march on the chord? Ecoutez, monsieur—your road is by Hagetmau, direct to Aire."

Seeing he was so urgent, I began to suspect he had a motive, so resolved to humour him. "Really, what you say appears very just. But the road—I am totally ignorant of it. It may be good; it may be bad."

"I answer for the road; know every inch of it."

"By the bye, monsieur, an idea strikes me. Give me your opinion. What if I perform the remaining distance by water?"

"By water!" exclaimed Hookey; "a great thought! What a saving of time and labour!"

"Good. I impress all the boats on the river; embark my whole convoy and escort; and so, by the Adour, or by one of its tributaries, arrive within a day's march of headquarters. What a surprise for Milord Vilinton, and all his staff!"

"Excellent! Write that, monsieur. Commit your letter to me, and trust me for delivering it. You will excite a sensation. The whole army will be electrified."

Greatly doubting whether a letter intrusted to Hookey would ever come to hand, I asked for writing materials, and just wrote that I hoped to reach my destination by the day appointed. Then, closing the document, I addressed it in due form, and handed it to Hookey. Had I really departed from my written route, as Hookey exhorted, I should not only have incurred responsibility, but have disobeyed orders, gone off the line of English posts, and entered a district which just at that time, as I have since discovered, was the seat of a serious disturbance. I now took leave of friend Hookey. That he was no courier, we had good reason for knowing ere long. He probably urged me to write, because doubtful whether my route was round by St Sever—hoping that something in my letter might help him to decide. This was evidently the point that he wished to ascertain; and on this subject I left him as wise as I found him.

Waiting a while at the door, ere I departed to my billet for the night, I heard a confab under the gateway, between Jones and Joaquim. Joaquim (Englished by Coosey "Joe King") was displaying to Jones his proficiency in the English language. Joaquim, I discovered, was ambitious to be English in everything—an English groom, like Coosey; took Coosey as his model. Coosey, by way of teaching him the language, had begun with the London cries. Joaquim was exhibiting his attainments; "Old clo'—old clo'."

"Quite naytral," said Jones; "better than the Jews does it themselves."

"Hinny yonnimints f'yer fire ... stooves?"

"Muinto buyng, muinto buyng," said Jones, whose Portuguese was second only to Joaquim's English. Jones, with an eye to Gingham, of whose well-stored cart he had already formed most magnificent conceptions, was assiduously striving to establish himself both with Joaquim and Coosey. Coosey at that moment came up.

"Hony you 'ear him do the donkey, though," said Coosey. "You Joe King, come, tip us the burro."

Joaquim brayed. Tommy Duncombe couldn't have done it better.

"There," said Coosey. "Now you listen." A donkey, somewhere within hearing, responded with a distant bray.

"That's vot I goes by," said Coosey. "I knows many young jeddlemen in Hingland, vot does it wherry like. But I never see not nobody, hony this 'ear Joe King, vot could make 'em 'oller."

Next morning, Jones again attempted to defraud Sancho of his corn. Jones, it was too evident, was a rogue in grain—detection did not reform him. As we issued from the town, proceeding on our day's march, I looked out for Gingham, right and left. At length, passing a cross-road, I heard a smart slap on Jones's musket; and, looking down the turning, I caught sight of Coosey returning the salute, hand to forehead, in military style, which Joaquim ditto'd. What Coosey did, Joaquim did; that was Joaquim's moral code. A little further down the lane, hurra! my eyes had now the pleasure of beholding Gingham; and not Gingham only, but Mr Staff-surgeon Pledget. Heartily should I have hailed the sight of either. What then was now my joy, in falling in both with Pledget, the solemn and the facetious, and with Gingham, the best of friends! Most cordial was the greeting on my side, nor less so on theirs. Gingham came forth in a new aspect. He turned out in a substantial great-coat, which covered everything from his spurs to his nose. This coat he wore upon the march in all weathers, rain or shine; but peeled at the end of the journey, and peeled white—came out clean as a nut—in propriâ personâ—ipsissimus—Gingham. The junction of these friends was a real accession to our party. Pledget was mounted on a good sensible mule. Gingham rode a handsome horse—Spanish—a really splendid fellow—all mettle and muscle—with fiery nostrils, flashing eye, delicate little ears, zebra legs, elastic motion—in short, a horse worthy of such a rider—a perfect gentleman. Coosey, also, was mounted on a showy Spanish stallion, whose advance was sideways, a perpetual zigzag. All in a quiver, he champed the bit, and came sidling up the road with arched neck, and foam churning from his jaws. The cart, drawn by a strong, large-boned French horse, was intrusted to the care of Joaquim, with the option of walking or riding. After our first greetings, the cart, being a novelty, became the subject of our conversation as we rode along. Gingham had built it at Passages. Had out the wheels from England; a pair, with a swivel wheel in front. The cart had for its covering a tarpaulin supported by hoops, closed at the back, and also closing, when requisite, in front—might be used, on an occasion, to sleep in—was so built that Gingham's boxes exactly fitted into it, making a level surface with their lids. In short the concern was well arranged, unpretending, and complete—altogether worthy of Gingham. Jones conned it with an admiring, but at the same time a critical eye; now walking in front and alongside, now dropping behind, to take a view in every direction; and, Coosey being Gingham's right-hand man, and Joaquim his help, would have tumbled head over heels to secure the favour of either.

I must here describe a little affair in which we were involved on this day's march; not as important in itself, but as standing connected with our subsequent adventures. While Gingham and I were still discussing the subject of the cart, we reached the river which we had passed the day before, and had now to pass again. A large and commodious ferryboat, which was to take us over, was lying on the other side; where we also saw assembled a concourse of people, apparently country-folks, who had come there with the intention of crossing. Expecting that a boat-load of them would soon pass to us, our party, as they came up, halted on the bank, waiting their arrival.

There seemed to be some delay. The people on the other side didn't get in, and the boat didn't come. We shouted across. They took no notice. Shouted louder. They answered with derisive jeers. Corporal Fraser stood by my side. "Some of the individuals have firearms," said he. I made a closer examination—saw it was so—and saw Hookey. Addressed him personally: "Have the kindness to get them to bring over the ferryboat." "This is not your road," sung out Hookey, with much gesticulation; "go by Hagetmau. Press all the boats on the Adour, and go by water." The case was clear. They did not intend to let us pass; and, as they had got the boat on their side, we could not compel them. Mr Chesterfield and I held a council of war.

"We can easily disperse that rabble by a few shots," said he; "and then the ferrymen will no doubt come forward, and bring the boat over."

I, on the contrary, was for avoiding collision, if possible. A war with the peasantry, once commenced, might soon become serious; and, should they return our fire, one or two wounded men, even supposing nothing worse, would prove a serious incumbrance to our subsequent progress. "Well, then," said Mr Chesterfield; "what are we to do? We can't wait here all day; that's evident."

The river was low. Could we find no other crossing? Was there no ford? I looked up the stream, Gingham looked down. "See here," said he, with his usual sagacity; "the river bends below, and spreads in the bend. Beyond, I see it again. No doubt there is a considerable sweep; and, probably, in that sweep a shallow."

"Suppose we go and examine," said I. Gingham looked earnestly in the direction.

"Don't see any way of getting there," said he. "There must be some communication, though, between that farmhouse and the road. No doubt it is the lane we passed just now. Suppose we go and see."

Gingham and I rode off up the road, to find the lane. Pledget followed on his mule. The multitude on the other side, thinking, no doubt, we were of to the town for assistance, again raised a shout of derision. We found the lane; and arrived at the farmhouse, and the bend in the river, without being noticed by the enemy.

The character of the ground was here peculiar. The river swept round in a horse-shoe curve, as the Thames sweeps round the Isle of Dogs; but so that the convexity was towards us, and the peninsula on the other side. Just at the vortex of this curve, or at what may be called the toe of the horse-shoe, the stream widened out, and to all appearance shoaled. "Here's the ford," said Gingham, and rode in. Pledget and I followed. We crossed the river and re-crossed it—most part of the way not knee-deep. The ford, though, was not right across; a ledge of rock traversed the river obliquely. Down to that ridge there was a ripple, and the stream gradually shoaled. Below it, all was deep water, smooth, dark, and silent.

"The worst of it is, though," said Gingham, awaking from a fit of musing, "the moment we withdraw our party from the ferry to pass them over here, the fellows on the other side will discover our design. We shall then have the whole peninsula covered with them.

"No fear of that," said I. "Don't you see? The peninsula is our ground, though on the other side of the river. We can command the whole of it from this bank, and the approaches too."

"Of course we can," said Pledget. "Occupy the house with half-a-dozen muskets, and that knoll with as many more, and not a man of them can come on the peninsula."

In fact, a few words are necessary to explain the full amount of our advantages. The whole extent of the peninsula, round which the river swept, was not above two or three acres. At one extremity of the curve, or, if you like to call it so, at one heel of the horse-shoe, stood the farmhouse, at the other stood the knoll; so that, though both knoll and house were on our side of the stream, a line drawn from one to the other would cut right across the isthmus; and, these two points once occupied, no one on the opposite side could come on the peninsula, and approach the ford, without passing under our guns, and exposing himself to a cross fire.

We returned forthwith, and made our report to Mr Chesterfield, who at once saw the expediency of promptly occupying the house and knoll. Accordingly, our whole party withdrew up the road. The enemy, thinking they had defeated our project, and compelled us to return to our last night's quarters, now shouted with redoubled energy, "The other road! The other road!—To Hagetmau! To Hagetmau!" One little squeaking voice I distinguished above the yells—not Hookey's: "So sal you here ober komm, so sal I gib you someting." This was not the last time I heard that voice.

Mr Chesterfield now pushed forward with a party by the lane towards the ford, the convoy and the rest of the escort following. He occupied both the farm-house and the knoll, the former with infantry, the latter with dragoons. The rest of the escort then forded the river with the convoy. Twenty or thirty of the rabble now discovered us, and ran down towards the spot; but they were too late. A few carbine and musket shots, from the knoll and house, soon brought them to a halt, and sent them to the right-about. Meanwhile the multitude at the ferry made demonstrations of crossing in the boat, with shouts and menaces. But in the midst of the uproar, looking down the river towards the ford, they caught sight of our cavalry moving up the bank towards them on their own side, in order of battle. It was quite sufficient. Not wishing for a closer acquaintance, the yokels immediately dispersed and cut; we did not pursue them; and thus was effected the passage of the river without collision, and without loss too, save and except the loss of time. Nor did we meet with any further obstruction during that day's march, which brought us to the next halting-place indicated in our route.

Still the state of affairs was far from satisfactory. It was sufficiently clear, from the events of the morning, that a spirit of hostility was alive; and that the rural population were disposed to obstruct our progress; nay perhaps, if they saw a prospect of success, to attack us. Hookey, it seemed probable, was the prime mover; and I felt satisfied we should see him again. I was far from thinking he had the concurrence of the French authorities; nor do I think so now. He would doubtless have been delighted to ease us of part of our cash; and probably, like other distinguished agitators, he was agitating on his own account. However that might be, it was clearly incumbent on us to have our eyes open, and to be prepared, if needful, to take our own part.

Nor could we feel wholly satisfied in other respects. In our intercourse with the inhabitants generally, we did not, it is true, detect tokens of hostility, or even experience rudeness. Still there was unquestionably a great alteration of manner, since we had advanced beyond the immediate vicinity of the Allied forces before Bayonne. This I noticed in the morning. But at the close of the day's journey it was still more observable. Whatever we applied for, indeed, we obtained—billets, accommodations, in short everything usually required by troops on a march. But nothing was given with alacrity; we seemed to have got into a cooler climate. I suppose most of my readers know the difference between a Frenchman who wishes to please, and one who has no such amiable ambition. By the demeanour and looks of the younger branches, too, we may sometimes discover how the heads of a family really stand affected towards us; and here, in the houses which I entered, nothing struck me more than the deportment of the children. Their distant and suspicious glances seemed to perform the part of tell-tales; one could almost guess what kind of a conversation respecting les Anglais, had previously passed in the family. One plucky little fellow appeared dressed out as a soldier. I tapped his sword, and asked him what that was for. He gravely replied, "To kill you."

The occurrences of the day seemed to remind us, that we were not to regard our remaining journey to headquarters as a mere party of pleasure; and those of the morrow were quite in accordance with this impression.

THE DWARF AND THE OAK TREE.
A VISION OF 1850.

I.

Within the greenwood as I walked,
Upon a summer's day,
I saw a vision wonderful,
That filled me with dismay.
Beneath the spreading shadow
Of a tall and stately tree,
Was a band of porkers gathered,
Grunting fierce as fierce could be.
They were rough and bristly monsters,
With an aspect most obscene;
And they trampled to a dunghill
All the fair and comely green.
Hideous tusks, and sharply whetted,
Did the savage creatures bear;
And their flanks were thick incrusted
With the droppings of their lair.

II.

Above, the mighty branches spread
From out the parent stem;
And lo! I saw a Mannikin
High perched on one of them.
His face was pale, his cheeks were white;
He sate in utter woe;
It seemed he durst not venture down,
For fear of those below.
But anon he shook the branches,
And down the acorns fell,
And then the beasts rushed forward,
Each with a horrid yell.
Right sharp and savage was the grunt,
Though plentiful the food:
So sate the lonely Mannikin
Within the lonely wood.

III.

But as I tarried, wondering much
To see the little man,
A gleam of light came o'er his face;
It seemed some cunning plan
Rose up within him, for he grinned
And nodded to himself,
Then grinned again and chuckled,
Like a sly and naughty elf.
And then I marked him, stealthily
From out his belt withdraw
A weapon in the morning light,
That glittered like a saw;
And straight astride a heavy branch
Right nimbly clambered he,
And sawed away most busily,
Between him and the tree!

IV.

Then longer from accosting him
I could not well forbear—
"What, ho, thou foolish Mannikin!
What art thou doing there?
A little deeper, and 'tis plain
The branch must downward go,
And down with it the carpenter
Unto the beasts below!"
Then answered back the Mannikin—
"Aha! I'm light and strong:
You'll see me scramble higher up,
And higher yet ere long.
But first this branch I sever, just
To please the hungry swine;
And then I'll lop another off—
For that's a scheme of mine!"

V.

"Forbear, thou naughty Mannikin!"
'Twas thus again I spoke—
"Who was't gave thee the liberty
To lop that stately oak?
In strength and glory it hath stood
A thousand years and more,
Still spreading forth its mighty arms,
As proudly as of yore.
What tree hath ever matched it yet
For majesty of form?
Or yielded such a sure defence
From heat, or rain, or storm?
Though tempests often round it swept,
It still hath bravely stood,
Nor ever stooped its shapely crest—
That monarch of the wood!

VI.

"And thou, an ape-like atomy,
Perched up within the tree!
Shall its fair limbs be lopped away
By such a dwarf as thee?"
Yet chattered still the Mannikin—
"Down, down, the branch must go!
The pigs demand the sacrifice—
They're watching me below.
See—see! they're grunting upwards! ah,
They bare their tusks at me!
For rather than offend my swine
I would uproot the tree.
Hush—hush, my darlings! Hush, my dears!
Here's plenty food for you—
A moment's patience, and 'tis done;
The branch is nearly through!"

VII.

"Have done, thou wicked Mannikin,
And hold that hand of thine;
I marvel what Ulysses 'twas
Set thee to keep the swine!
If from that noble forest-tree
Thou loppest every shoot,
Where, when another autumn comes,
Will be the needful fruit?
'Tis well to feed thy bristly herd,
Ay, feed them to the fill;
But leave the oak-tree unprofaned
With all its branches still:
Lest, when the swine have eaten all
The food that thou canst send,
They take a horrid fancy next
To dine on thee, my friend!"

VIII.

'Twas thus I spoke in warning. Still
The Mannikin said, "Nay!"
But ever chattered busily,
And ever sawed away.
I marked the branch declining fast,
Its fibres creaking sore:
I heard the grunting of the beasts
Still fiercer than before.
High up into the air was thrown
Each grim uncleanly snout,
With wriggling tails and cloven hoofs
They galloped all about.
They flung the mire and pebbles up,
In their unholy glee,
And held a Satan's carnival
Beneath the fated tree!