hat I should try
their poteen. Naturally I declined, but in a manner, I hope, calculated
not to wound their feelings.'

This demeanour Sir George Grey carried into his office as a centurion of
soldiers, at a date when the lash still plied viciously in the British
army. He sat on a court-martial which had to try a private soldier for
habitual drunkenness. As the youngest officer present, he was the first
to be asked what the sentence ought to be. He suggested a light
punishment, one that was not perhaps in harmony with ideas then prevalent
as to the best manner of preserving military discipline. To him flogging
was abhorrent, and entertaining that view, he had fallen into debate with
brother officers. The sentence which he proposed caused a roar of
laughter among some of the members of the court-martial. 'Gentlemen,'
interjected the general at the head of the table, 'mercy is a very
becoming characteristic of youth, and I do not understand this laughter.'
That cut it short.

Daniel O'Connell was at the height of his influence in Ireland, and Sir
George could look back on the military duties which once or twice brought
him into the precincts of the Tribune.

'Agitate, agitate, agitate,' a sympathetic Viceroy had written to
O'Connell, upon the subject of Catholic emancipation, and an official
stir followed. The Marquis of Anglesey, who led the cavalry at Waterloo,
and lost a leg there, had not hesitated to utter his mind about Ireland.
O'Connell unthinkingly read the letter at a meeting, and the Viceroy
found himself in trouble with his Government. That was within Sir
George's memory; but take, as touching O'Connell more intimately, an
election meeting at Limerick, where the regiment was paraded to keep
order.

'With a bitter satire, O'Connell introduced into his speech,' said Sir
George, 'the story of the siege of Limerick. He eloquently told how the
women of Limerick beat back the soldiers of William III. This was his
shrewd method of getting at us soldiers, and he implied that, if
necessary, the women of Limerick could beat back the soldiers of another
English king. All we could do was to stand there, stiff as starch, while
the stings fell from his caustic tongue. O'Connell was a splendid
speaker, and he had a most inviting presence, an attractive personality
altogether. Looking at him, you decided, "That's a capital fellow, a
merry fellow to be with; why, I should like to be a friend of his!"'

The Irish peasant