that the authorities allow the fugitives to disperse on laying down their arms, they believe the lie, are entrapped, and massacred by hundreds. Already, eighteen thousand victims are heaped along the banks of the dreadful river, and Rochejacquelin, with the wretched remains of his army, utterly broken in body and spirit, retires upon the scene of his fruitless glory-Laval. From that place they advanced to Ancenis on the Loire, the very spot where they had crossed two months before on their way to Normandy. Their only means of crossing was a little boat they had taken from the pond of a chateau, and a small fishing craft which they found at the water's edge-Westermann was close behind. On the other side, were several boats, moored under the guns of the republican fort. Could they but obtain these! but who would dare to loose them? Rochejacquelin flung himself into the fishing craft, he was followed by the brave Stofflet, with half-a-dozen men. They pull across, they reach the boats, they unmoor one of them, then another, then a thirdsuddenly, an explosion of cannon and musketry shakes the earth; the fort, the river's edge, the boats are enveloped in a dense cloud of smoke, a shower of bullets descends, ploughing up land and water-the cloud clears away-Heaven be praised! Rochejacquelin and Stofflet, all unharmed, are busy with the remaining boat, endeavouring to detach it, but the rope will not give way, and the garrison pour down upon them: they are overpowered and dispersed, and the Vendeans, on the far bank, behold themselves with horror separated from their last hope-from Rochejacquelin. Westermann, with his butchers, now came; and the remnant of the royalists, stupified with their condition, and helpless as infants, fall an easy prey. A very few escaped into La Vendée, and most of them were afterwards rooted out of their concealments in twos and threes, to perish by the hands of the executioner. D'Elbée, who, we may remember, had disappeared at the first crossing of the Loire, was thus hunted out, and too disabled by his wounds to stand, was placed in an arm-chair and shot. The Prince de Talmont was shot in his own court-yard, and in him perished the last of those heroic, but ill-fated men with whom this account commenced-except Rochejacquelin. He and Stofflet having gained the Bocage, went up and down for some time, endeavouring to rouse the peasants. Charette was still in the field, and Rochejacquelin endeavoured to prevail on him to associate himself with his exertions; but the jealous disposition of the former, who disliked the idea of a divided command, rendered the attempt abortive. Rochejacquelin then returned, in the hope of raising a force of his own; aided by Stofflet, he succeeded in collecting a small number of troops, and by a series of successful skirmishes began to make his presence felt again. But his brief and glorious career was over! He attacked and overpowered the garrison of Maillé; after the victory, Rochejacquelin saw the peasants making preparations to shoot two republican grenadiers; he hastened to intercede for them-" Surrender," he called out, "and you shall have your lives." Just then, some one pronounced his name; one of the grenadiers turned, presented his musket, and fired: the bullet entered Rochejacquelin's forehead, and he fell. Thus, on the 4th March, 1794, at the early age of twenty-one, died Henry de La Rochejacquelin, the hero of La Vendée. Charette and Stofflet kept up the struggle for a while; finally, they also were apprehended and shot. As the curtain falls upon the last actors in the tragedy, it is some consolation to think that they did not perish in vain. The Convention, having learned that no amount of murder, no contrivance of cruelty could stifle the loyalty of La Vendée, resolved to offer terms to the few brave who now remained to accept them. They were to be allowed the unrestrained exercise of their religion, a full indemnity for all their losses, and, which may perhaps be considered the most suitable immunity, freedom from military service. Cold, indeed, must be the heart, insensible to all that is loyal and chivalrous in our nature, who could read this record without emotion. I know of no episode in history so affecting, except the struggle of the Highlanders under Montrose, of which, in so many respects, it reminds us. Both cases were remarkable exceptions to that grand rule in military science, that discipline will always beat enthusiasm. In both instances, the numerical superiority was tremendously against the royalists. In both, the most unequal contest was prolonged beyond all precedent, by a courage in the soldier that received no aid from drilling or experience, and a generalship in the leaders, which must be pronounced instinctive. A hairsbreadth would, in both cases, have, more than once, turned the scale and changed the destinies of Europe. Had Rochejacquelin succeeded in effecting a coalition with Charette, in all probability, the infant republic would have been crushed for ever, and had the royalists received support from England at the siege of Granville, it is more than likely that Napoleon would have never held his court in the palace of the Bourbon. Had the measures recommended by Montrose to the Queen, at York, to prevent the coalition of the Scotch and English Parliaments, and to use his own intense language, so like Rochejacquelin's, "to crush the rebellious cockatrice in the egg." Had those recommendations prevailed over Hamilton's temporising councils, Lord Leven would never have crossed the Tweed, and the "solemn league and covenant" would have been subscribed in vain. Had Prince Rupert, on the day of Marston Moor, waited the arrival of Montrose, Cromwell and his ironsides would have found their match in the 66 Great Marquis," and his fiery hussars; the Scots would have been spared the eternal disgrace of having betrayed their trusting king, and the fatal Naseby would never have been fought. In both these glorious campaigns, the interest is heightened by the chivalrous generosity that characterised the proceedings of the royalists, and over all is shed the glory of a good cause. The resemblance between the heroes of the two campaigns is too striking to require notice-their fate too was the same. Both expiated their services, or shall I say, met their reward by an early death-Rochejacquelin, while yet a boy; Montrose, scarce on the threshold of manhood. THE SERVICES OF THE PENINSULAR ARMY. BY ONE WHO SERVED WITH IT. It would be considered an observation of no very profound wisdom to remark, that the glory and success of an army mainly depend upon the mental resources and character of its chief; but it is not a principle so generally weighed and accepted, that its conduct and its happiness spring from and rest upon the commanders of its several battalions. A right-minded and right-feeling commanding officer will, in a surprisingly short time, reform a corps of the greatest scamps who ever were permitted to defy civil and martial law; whilst a wrongheaded indulgence, or an indiscreet zeal will as rapidly disorganise the finest regiment, which a Hougomont-Macdonell, an Andrew Barnard, or a Harry Smith, ever turned out perfect from their hands. The Emperor Alexander, when in England in 1814, is said to have become so enamoured with the working of that limited authority of which he saw here such glorious results, that he vowed that when he got back to Russia he would get up an opposition to the government there, and place himself at its head! For he added, "That a good autocrat like himself was merely un heureux accident- -a lucky hit!" He probably read in the secrets of his own heart the dangers of an unchecked human power. An officer in charge of a regiment possesses a control over the comfort of its men, almost as great as that of his imperial majesty; and he is exposed to two prevailing temptations: on the one hand is the danger that he may too anxiously court at the Horse Guards the reputation of a smart officer, by a tormenting and fussy zeal; on the other is the peril that he may seek too sensitively the favour of his people by a sacrifice of discipline to a slovenly slackness and indulgence. Good feeling and common sense are " the opposition" here needed to such abuse of power: of the former there is in general no lack, but of the latter fine quality there is even in Her Britannic Majesty's service sometimes a deficiency. A lady, a friend of mine, lately represented to her steward in the Highlands, that he would find the management of her estate in every way more easy, if he would but employ under him people who possessed only a little common sense. Vary true, vary true, mileddi," said the old man, "I ken ye're right; but coomen sense, mileddi, is na sa coomen as your leddiship may think." The mischiefs of various sorts and sizes, however, which I have known such very zealous and such very indulgent officers to produce, I ́ may have, perhaps, many occasions to relate, in these my gossipings of old times and campaigns. I say "perhaps," for I intend to take the privilege of an old pensioner on half-pay; and, having for forty years been bound to eat, drink, dress, talk, or move either in angles, lines, or squares, according to his or her Majesty's regulations, I purpose in future to be my own commanding officer; to do as I please, and say what I like and how I like, "nothing putting down in malice." I trust that the good-natured reader will admit that I have sufficient authority for my very desultory discourse, seeing that Lord Bacon sayeth That speak of touch" (which I take to mean "gossip") "should be sparingly used: for discourse should be like in a field, withous coming home to any man," and that Madame de Staël has ruled "Que la conversation (gossiping again) n'est pas comme le chemin, qui conduise à la maison, mais comme un sentier, où on se promène au hasard avec plaisir." Under such high sanctions I shall take the liberty to turn back for a moment to the old-world times of a generation now gone out; and as we are told with much truth, that Young France, with its aspiring young heroes, de Joinville and Co. have a hope, a wish, a longing to be able, on some early opportunity, to return us the visits, which we have from time to time made to them; let us not, while we give them full credit for the will, be too prone to pooh-pooh their ability to the deed. Let us rather be prepared, and recal to mind the feelings and the glorious facts too, which such threatenings (more openly uttered, but, perhaps, not more mischievously meant) called forth half a century ago, and in the end produced the Peninsular army; and, if my gossipings should go back to almost unbreeched memories, they will be forgiven in deference to another high logical axiom, "Qu'il faut commencer par le commencement." It would, I believe, be difficult to create in the mind of the young of the present generation, that enthusiastic spirit, which, in the early days of their fathers, had warmed them to military enterprise; and which prepared the nation for such noble struggles as the Peninsular war. The heart of every Englishman beat high with indignation and disgust at the diabolical deeds of the ruffian authors, and instruments of the French Revolution; and the peasant over his newly taxed a'e, as he learned from the weekly journal of his village inn their sanguinary threats of the invasion and plunder of his father-land, clenched his fist in anticipated vengeance, and emptied his jug to the jolly old song: "They say they 'll invade us, these terrible foes, Steady, boys, steady, To fight and to beat them again and again." The whole island, from north to south, was soon one vast garrison, covered by camps and barracks, and surrounded, for out-works, by our "wooden walls." Our earliest memories include in every scene of interest or amusement, at reviews and balls, in public parties and the socialities of home, the gay uniform, now so rare, and gayer society of the soldier and the sailor. The defence of the land was the passion as well as the necessity of the hour. The sights and sounds, and pastimes of our boyhood were military, and our very games at school were a lesson and a mimicry of war. The strongest impression which now remains to me of those stirring times, after a lapse of upwards of fifty years, is the appearance one day of my father (the member of a grave profession) in the smart uniform of a cornet of yeomanry cavalry. I remember the delight and pride, with which I bounded round him in this unwonted and gay attire, and my love for a soldier dated from that hour: but my extasy of that occasion quickly melted itself away into a very alarmed and affectionate admiration, when he announced to me "the oath, which he had just taken, at the town hall, to fight the French, whenever King George the Third, God bless him, should send him to do so." Within the walls of every house such "interiors" could then have been painted. The eastern coast, most exposed to, and threatened with, attack, was especially characterized by such excitement. Its wide heaths and "walks were whitened with tents, and re-echoed the sounds of drums and artillery. Columns were seen at exercise of every arm and grade from morning till night-from the gallant linesman, whose service had no limit of time or place in this vast empire, to the volunteer and local-militia-man, whose duties bound them to guard only the aræ et foci, the threshold of their homestead, and the altars of their God. In those holy purposes there were no defaulters, no "malingerers." The orders were issued, the arrangements were made, and our "folk" were ready too, as soon as an enemy should land, to clear away, lay waste, destroy and burn all that could feed, or serve, or shelter them. Nothing was to be found by them upon the desert, prepared for their reception, but the brave hearts and strong arms of its defenders. I heard an old yeoman, rich by the industry and thrift of a long life and the father of many children, on whom the office had devolved of "head constable of his hundred," give the order, which would have doomed him and them and his whole neighbourhood to temporary destitution, on the instant that the telegraph upon a distant steeple gave the appointed signal. In the midst of all this, which now sounds so formidable, it is most marvellous, how little there was of fear: there was neither confusion nor alarm. It was, to be sure a comforting reflection, that the adjoining bay was covered by our ships of war, and that Sir Sidney Smith and his men of Acre were there with them. The gallant admiral was said to be one of those ambidextrous heroes, who, "with one foot on the land and the other on the sea, could fight equally well on both.” There was about him, too, a romantic and chivalrous gaiety, which joined to his recent exploits in Syria and success against Buonaparte, made him appear to us an invincible defender, and which he also seemed to have no sort of hesitation to consider himself. His inveterate hatred and abuse of the French, to whom he applied every imaginable name of opprobrium, was most amusing. I remember, that the accusation which they had circulated, that he had placed prisoners, whom he had taken, in vessels infected by the plague, most especially inflamed him; and he used to swear, ore rotundo, and to the superlative admiration and encouragement of all around, that, if ever he caught that "murderous rascal" Buonaparte, he kept in his possession for him a number of newspapers of all countries, in which "the lie" had been repeated every one of which he should make him eat as his first meal on board a British man-of-war. Sir Sidney and his merry men added as much to the enthusiasm as they did to the security of the surrounding country. The decks of the Antelope, and the roof-tree of the old hall, where I saw him a frequent and honoured guest, used to vibrate to the dance and our joyous young voices; whilst the camp hard by added its quota to the merry muster. The press-gang or the recruiting party were little needed in that vicinity; every boy, before he was breeched, talked of nothing but war. It was, indeed, impossible to meet everywhere such brave fellows without catching something of their gallant spirit; and so it was. From reunions and scenes like these sprung up and was hallowed on our very hearths that indomitable patriotism which was as unequalled in its patient and vast sacrifices, as it was in its subsequent triumph and reward. Napoleon on the heights of Boulogne felt it, and paused ere |