we came home, was to draw
up a memorial to the Lord-Lieutenant, desiring to have a
court-martial held on the sergeant who, by haranguing the populace,
had raised the mob at Longford; his next care was to walk through
the village, to examine what damage had been done by the rebels, and
to order that repairs of all his tenants' houses should be made at
his expense. A few days after our return, Government ordered that
the arms of the Edgeworth Town infantry should be forwarded by the
commanding-officer at Longford. Through the whole of their hard
week's trial the corps had, without any exception, behaved perfectly
well. It was perhaps more difficult to honest and brave men
passively to bear such a trial than any to which they could have
been exposed in action.

'When the arms for the corps arrived, my father, in delivering them
to the men, thanked them publicly for their conduct, assuring them
that he would remember it whenever he should have opportunities of
serving them, collectively or individually. In long-after years, as
occasions arose, each who continued to deserve it found in him a
friend, and felt that he more than fulfilled his promise. . . .
Before we quit this subject, it may be useful to record that the
French generals who headed this invasion declared they had been
completely deceived as to the state of Ireland. They had expected to
find the people in open rebellion, or at least, in their own phrase,
organised for insurrection; but to their dismay they found only
ragamuffins, as they called them, who, in joining their standard,
did them infinitely more harm than good. It is a pity that the lower
Irish could not hear the contemptuous manner in which the French,
both officers and soldiers, spoke of them and of their country. The
generals described the stratagems which had been practised upon them
by their good allies--the same rebels frequently returning with
different tones and new stories, to obtain double and treble
provisions of arms, ammunition, and uniforms--selling the ammunition
for whisky, and running away at the first fire in the day of battle.
The French, detesting and despising those by whom they had been thus
cheated, pillaged, and deserted, called them beggars, rascals, and
savages. They cursed also without scruple their own Directory for
sending them, after they had, as they boasted, conquered the world,
to be at last beaten on an Irish bog. Officers and soldiers joined
in swearing that they wo