een spared this reproach.

"Of coorse," says Father Malachi Brennan, who leans over my shoulder while
I write,--"of coorse you ought to know all about these things as well as
the Duke of Wellington or Marshal Soult himself. UNDE DERYVATUR MILES.
Ain't you in the Derry militia?" I hope the Latin and the translation will
satisfy every objection.

While, then, I have nothing but thankfulness in my heart respecting the
entire press of my own country, I have a small grudge with my friends of
the far west; and as this is a season of complaint against the Yankees,
"Why shouldn't I roll my tub also?" A certain New York paper, called the
"Sunday Times," has thought fit for some time past to fill its columns with
a story of the Peninsular war, announcing it as "by the author of Charles
O'Malley." Heaven knows that injured individual has sins enough of his own
to answer for, without fathering a whole foundling hospital of American
balderdash; but this kidnapping spirit of brother Jonathan would seem to be
the fashion of the day! Not content with capturing Macleod, who unhappily
ventured within his frontier, he must come over to Ireland and lay hands
on Harry Lorrequer. Thus difficulties are thickening every day. When they
dispose of the colonel, then comes the boundary question; after that there
is Grogan's affair, then me. They may liberate Macleod; [3] they may
abandon the State of Maine,--but what recompense can be made to me for this
foul attack on my literary character? It has been suggested to me from the
Foreign Office that the editor might be hanged. I confess I should like
this; but after all it would be poor satisfaction for the injury done me.
Meanwhile, as Macleod has the _pas_ of me, I'll wait patiently, and think
the matter over.

[Footnote 3: I have just read that Macleod and Grogan have been liberated.
May I indulge a hope that _my_ case will engage the sympathies of the
world during the Christmas holidays. H. L.]

It was my intention, before taking leave of you, to have apologized
separately for many blunders in my book; but the errors of the press are
too palpable to be attributed to me. I have written letters without end,
begged, prayed, and entreated that more care might be bestowed; but
somehow, after all, they have crept in in spite of me. Indeed, latterly I
began to think I had found out the secret of it. My publisher, excellent
man, has a kind of pride about printing in Ireland, and he thinks the
blunder