e, when he was
campaigning, spoke with tears in his eyes of that illustrious
prince--declaring him, with an oath, to have been a d----d good fellow.
As for Leopold, we unanimously voted him to be a scurvy hound; and Joe
Macgillicuddy was pleased to say something complimentary of the Prince
of Orange, which would have, no doubt, much gratified his Royal
Highness, if it had been communicated to him, but I fear it never
reached his ears.

Turning to domestic policy--we gave it to the Whigs in high style. If
Lord Grey had been within hearing, he must have instantly resigned--he
never could have resisted the thunders of our eloquence. All the hundred
and one Greys would have been forgotten--he must have sunk before us.
Had Brougham been there, he would have been converted to Toryism long
before he could have got to the state of tipsyfication in which he
sometimes addresses the House of Lords. There was not a topic left
undiscussed. With one hand we arranged Ireland--with another put the
Colonies in order. Catholic Emancipation was severely condemned, and
Bob Burke gave the glorious, pious, and immortal memory. The vote of
L20,000,000 to the greasy blacks was much reprobated, and the opening
of the China trade declared a humbug. We spoke, in fact, articles that
would have made the fortunes of half a hundred magazines, if the editors
of those works would have had the perspicacity to insert them; and this
we did with such ease to ourselves, that we never for a moment stopped
the circulation of the bottle, which kept running on its round
rejoicing, while we settled the affairs of the nation.

Then Antony Harrison told us all his campaigns in the Peninsula, and
that capital story how he bilked the tavern-keeper in Portsmouth. Jack
Ginger entertained us with an account of his transactions in the
Brazils; and as Jack's imagination far outruns his attention to matters
of fact, we had them considerably improved. Bob Burke gave us all the
particulars of his duel with Ensign Brady of the 48th, and how he hit
him on the waistcoat pocket, which, fortunately for the Ensign,
contained a five-shilling piece (how he got it was never accounted for),
which saved him from grim death. From Joe Macgillicuddy we heard
multifarious narrations of steeple-chases in Tipperary, and of his
hunting with the Blazers in Galway. Tom Meggot expatiated on his college
adventures in Edinburgh, which he maintained to be a far superior city
to London, and repea