DISEMBARKING at Dover, our regiment marched to Shorn Cliff Barracks, where we had not long been quartered when an order arrived from the Horse Guards for two sergeants and two corporals of each company of the Rifles to be discharged. Men who had been wounded were to be first, and old men next. I was accordingly, although only about thirty-one years of age, invalided by our doctor, on account of my wounds, and immediately departed for Chatham, to await an order from Chelsea to proceed to London, to pass the Board. Here, to my astonishment, one day Augustine presented herself before me. Her appearance almost electrified me. “Edouard—mon cher Edouard,” she exclaimed, “je te suivrai partout.” I then learned that, having arrived at Shorn Cliff Barracks, and inquired for me, Colonel Leach had kindly paid her passage by coach to Chatham, directing her where to find me. Here she gave birth to a child. Shortly afterwards I received orders to appear before the Chelsea Board, and we proceeded to London, with others. On our arrival, our circumstances being very needy, we took a single room in Red Lion Street, Chelsea, where we resolved to live as sparingly as possible. I passed the Board, but soon found the pittance allowed me insufficient to maintain us, being only sixpence per day. I had yet hopes, however, that my case was not understood, and I therefore applied to my Colonel, Sir Andrew Barnard, and explained it to him. Sir Andrew instantly gave me a note (which I now hold in my possession)[23] for Sir David Dundas, the then Governor of Chelsea. Thus provided, and equipped in my uniform, I set out for Sir David’s residence, and found him walking about the grounds in front of his house, at Chelsea College. I handed my paper to him in person, and retired aside while he perused it. But Sir David having scanned it without turning his head, tossing aside his pigtail with his fore-finger, cooly handed the note over his shoulders to me, remarking at the same moment, that he dared say the Lords Commissioners of Chelsea had given me what they thought I deserved. The old gentleman, I suppose, possessed too much of the Spartan blood, to notice me more than he did; and like the two survivors of Thermopylæ, he thought my return to England highly inglorious, and unbefitting a soldier; since it had made me a sixpenny burthen on the country I had served.