ed how should it be
otherwise, considering my education and birth?

When I was sufficiently ingratiated with him, I asked leave to address a
letter to my poor mother in Ireland, to whom I had not given any news of
myself for many many years; for the letters of the foreign soldiers were
never admitted to the post, for fear of appeals or disturbances on the
part of their parents abroad. My captain agreed to find means to forward
the letter, and as I knew that he would open it, I took care to give it
him unsealed; thus showing my confidence in him. But the letter was, as
you may imagine, written so that the writer should come to no harm were
it intercepted. I begged my honoured mother's forgiveness for having
fled from her; I said that my extravagance and folly in my own country
I knew rendered my return thither impossible; but that she would, at
least, be glad to know that I was well and happy in the service of the
greatest monarch in the world, and that the soldier's life was most
agreeable to me: and, I added, that I had found a kind protector and
patron, who I hoped would some day provide for me as I knew it was out
of her power to do. I offered remembrances to all the girls at Castle
Brady, naming them from Biddy to Becky downwards, and signed myself,
as in truth I was, her affectionate son, Redmond Barry, in Captain
Potzdorffs company of the Bulowisch regiment of foot in garrison at
Berlin. Also I told her a pleasant story about the King kicking the
Chancellor and three judges downstairs, as he had done one day when I
was on guard at Potsdam, and said I hoped for another war soon, when I
might rise to be an officer. In fact, you might have imagined my letter
to be that of the happiest fellow in the world, and I was not on this
head at all sorry to mislead my kind parent.

I was sure my letter was read, for Captain Potzdorff began asking me
some days afterwards about my family, and I told him the circumstances
pretty truly, all things considered. I was a cadet of a good family, but
my mother was almost ruined and had barely enough to support her eight
daughters, whom I named. I had been to study for the law at Dublin,
where I had got into debt and bad company, had killed a man in a
duel, and would be hanged or imprisoned by his powerful friends, if I
returned. I had enlisted in the English service, where an opportunity
for escape presented itself to me such as I could not resist; and
hereupon I told the story of Mr.