nd my brother became an officer in it;
but the danger was soon over, Napoleon was once more quelled and chained
for ever, like Prometheus, to his rock. As the corps, however, though so
recently levied, had already become a very fine one, thanks to my
father's energetic drilling, the Government very properly determined to
turn it to some account, and, as disturbances were apprehended in Ireland
about this period, it occurred to them that they could do no better than
despatch it to that country.

In the autumn of the year 1815 we set sail from a port in Essex; we were
some eight hundred strong, and were embarked in two ships, very large,
but old and crazy; a storm overtook us when off Beachy Head, in which we
had nearly foundered. I was awakened early in the morning by the howling
of the wind, and the uproar on deck. I kept myself close, however, as is
still my constant practice on similar occasions, and waited the result
with that apathy and indifference which violent sea-sickness is sure to
produce. We shipped several seas, and once the vessel missing
stays--which, to do it justice, it generally did at every third or fourth
tack--we escaped almost by a miracle from being dashed upon the foreland.
On the eighth day of our voyage we were in sight of Ireland. The weather
was now calm and serene, the sun shone brightly on the sea and on certain
green hills in the distance, on which I descried what at first sight I
believed to be two ladies gathering flowers, which, however, on our
nearer approach, proved to be two tall white towers, doubtless built for
some purpose or other, though I did not learn for what.

We entered a kind of bay, or cove, by a narrow inlet; it was a beautiful
and romantic place this cove, very spacious, and being nearly
land-locked, was sheltered from every wind. A small island, every inch
of which was covered with fortifications, appeared to swim upon the
waters, whose dark blue denoted their immense depth; tall green hills,
which ascended gradually from the shore, formed the background to the
west; they were carpeted to the top with turf of the most vivid green,
and studded here and there with woods, seemingly of oak; there was a
strange old castle half-way up the ascent, a village on a crag--but the
mists of morning were half veiling the scene when I surveyed it, and the
mists of time are now hanging densely between it and my no longer
youthful eye; I may not describe it;--nor will I try.

Le