land was the
very reverse of tranquil on the subject of Ireland.

It was to no purpose that I repeated my personal indifference to all
these measures of severity; that in my capacity as a Frenchman and an
officer, I stood exempt from all the consequences they alluded to. Their
reply was, that in times of trouble and alarm things were done which
quieter periods would never have sanctioned, and that indiscreet and
over-zealous men would venture on acts that neither law nor justice
could substantiate. In fact, they gave me to believe, that such was the
excitement of the moment, such the embittered vengeance of those whose
families or fortunes had suffered by the rebellion, that no reprisals
would be thought too heavy, nor any harshness too great, for those who
aided the movement.

Whatever I might have said against the injustice of this proceeding, in
my secret heart I had to confess that it was only what might have been
expected, and coming from a country where it was enough to call a man an
aristocrat and then cry "a la lanterne," I saw nothing unreasonable in
it all.

My friends, advised me, therefore, instead of preferring any formal
claim to immunity, to take the first occasion of escaping to America,
whence I could not fail, later on, of returning to France. At first, the
counsel only irritated me, but by degrees, as I came to think more
calmly and seriously of the difficulties, I began to regard it in a
different light; and at last I fully concurred in the wisdom of the
advice, and resolved on adopting it.

To sit on the cliffs, and watch the ocean for hours, became now the
practice of my life--to gaze from daybreak almost to the falling of
night over the wide expanse of sea, straining my eyes at each sail, and
conjecturing to what distant shore they were tending. The hopes which at
first sustained, at last deserted me, as week after week passed over,
and no prospect of escape appeared. The life of inactivity gradually
depressed my spirits, and I fell into a low and moping condition, in
which my hours rolled over without thought or notice. Still, I returned
each day to my accustomed spot, a lofty peak of rock that stood over the
sea, and from which the view extended for miles on every side. There,
half hid in the wild heath, I used to lie for hours long, my eyes bent
upon the sea, but my thoughts wandering away to a past that never was to
be renewed, and a future I was never destined to experience.

Although l