I have made acquaintance at the _Ecu de Genève_ with a very gallant and accomplished officer, the Chevalier Zadera, a Pole by birth and a Colonel in the French army.[51] He had been on the staff of the Prince d'Eckmühl at Hamburgh and had served previously in St Domingo, in Germany and in Italy. He had just quitted the French service, having a great repugnance to serve under the Bourbon dynasty, and he is about to go to Italy on private business. He seems a very well informed man and well versed in French, Italian and German litterature. He also understands well to read and write English and speaks it, but not at all fluently. He acquired his English in the United States of America, whither he went when he escaped from the horrors of St Domingo. By the Americans he was received with open arms and unbounded hospitality as the compatriot of Pulaski who fell gloriously fighting in their cause, the cause of liberty, at the battle of Savannah. He was liberally supplied with money by several individuals without the smallest expectation or chance of repayment at the time, and was forwarded in this manner from town to town and from state to state throughout the whole Union; so that the tour he made and the time he passed in that land of liberty, he reckons as far the most agreeable epoch of his life. One evening at the _Ecu de Genève_ I found Zadera in altercation on political subjects with two French Ultras who had been emigrants, a Genevois and a Bernois, both anti-liberal. This was fearful odds for poor Zadera to be alone against four _acharnés_. I sat down and espoused his cause and we maintained our argument gloriously. The dispute began on the occasion of Zadera condemning the harshness shewn by the government of Geneva towards the _Conventionnels_ and others who were banished from France on the second restoration of Louis XVIII by a vote of the _Chambre introuvable_ in refusing them an asylum in the Republic and compelling them to depart immediately in a very contumelious manner. I said it was inconsistent and unworthy of the Genevese who called themselves republicans to persecute or join in the persecution of the republicans of France in order to please foreign despots. The others then began to be very violent with me. I replied, "Messieurs, vous avez beau parler; les Genevois sont de très bons cambistes et les meilleurs banquiers de l'Europe, mais il ne sont pas bons républicains."