vered himself of the message with which he had been
charged, and _that_ was a challenge from the Kandyan general to come out
and fight without aid from his artillery. The dismal report was just in
time; darkness was then coming on. The English officer spiked his guns;
and, with his garrison, fled by night from a fort in which else he would
have perished by starvation or by storm, had Kandyan forces been equal to
such an effort. This corporal was, strictly speaking, the only man who
_escaped_, one or two other survivors having been reserved as captives,
for some special reasons. Of this captive party was Major Davie, the
commander, whom Mr Bennett salutes by the title of "gallant," and regrets
that "the strong arm of death" had intercepted his apology.

He could have made no apology. Plea or palliation he had none. To have
polluted the British honour in treacherously yielding up to murder (and
absolutely for nothing in return) a prince, whom we ourselves had seduced
into rebellion--to have forced his men and officers into laying down their
arms, and sueing for the mercy of wretches the most perfidious on earth;
these were acts as to which atonement or explanation was hopeless for
_him_, forgiveness impossible for England. So this man is to be called
"the gallant"--is he? We will thank Mr Bennett to tell us, who was that
officer subsequently seen walking about in Ceylon, no matter whether in
Western Columbo, or in Eastern Trincomale, long enough for reaping his
dishonour, though, by accident, not for a court-martial? Behold, what a
curse rests in this British island upon those men, who, when the clock of
honour has sounded the hour for their departure, cannot turn their dying
eyes nobly to the land of their nativity--stretch out their hands to the
glorious island in farewell homage, and say with military pride--as even
the poor gladiators (who were but slaves) said to Caesar, when they passed
his chair to their death "Morituri te salutamus!" This man and Mr Bennett
knows it, because he was incrusted with the leprosy of cowardice, and
because upon him lay the blood of those to whom he should have been _in
loco parentis_, made a solitude wherever he appeared, men ran from him as
from an incarnation of pestilence; and between him and free intercourse
with his countrymen, from the hour of his dishonour in the field, to the
hour of his death, there flowed a river of separation--there were
stretched lines of interdict heavier tha