our
Bathurst and Captain E--, of the Artillery, a very good-looking man.
After dinner, Mrs. Aston took us as far as Tortoni's, on her way to the
Opera. On entering the cafe, Captain E-- did not touch his hat
according to the custom of the country, but behaved himself, a la John
Bull, in a noisy and swaggering manner; upon which, General, then
Colonel J--, went up to E-- and knocked off his hat, telling him that
he hoped he would in future behave himself better. Aston, Bathurst,
and I, waited for some time, expecting to see E-- knock J-- down, or,
at all events, give him his card as a preliminary to a hostile meeting,
on receiving such an insult; but he did nothing. We were very much
disgusted and annoyed at a countryman's behaving in such a manner, and,
after a meeting at my lodgings, we recommended Captain E--, in the
strongest terms, to call out Colonel J--, but he positively refused to
do so, as he said it was against his principles. This specimen of the
white feather astonished us beyond measure. Captain E-- shortly after
received orders to start for India, where I believe he died of
cholera--in all probability of FUNK.

I do not think that Colonel J-- would altogether have escaped with
impunity, after such a gratuitous insult to an English officer; but he
retired into the country almost immediately after the incident at
Tortoni's, and could not be found.

There were many men in our army who did not thus disgrace the British
uniform when insulted by the French. I cannot omit the names of my old
friends Captain Burges, Mike Fitzgerald, Charles Hesse, and Thoroton;
each of whom, by their willingness to resent gratuitous offences,
showed that insults to Englishmen were not to be committed with
impunity. The last named officer having been grossly insulted by
Marshal V--, without giving him the slightest provocation, knocked him
down: this circumstance caused a great sensation in Paris, and brought
about a court of inquiry, which ended in the acquittal of Captain
Thoroton. My friend, B--, though he had only one leg, was a good
swordsman, and contrived to kill a man at Lyons who had jeered him
about the loss of his limb at Waterloo. My old and esteemed friend,
Mike Fitzgerald, son of Lord Edward and the celebrated Pamela, was
always ready to measure swords with the Frenchmen; and, after a brawl
at Silves', the then fashionable Bonapartist cafe at the corner of the
Rue Lafitte and the Boulevard, in which two of our