Manby was highly amused at the notion of my turning egg and chicken merchant, which I told him it was my intention to do. In that country food of all sorts for my fowls was easily procured, so I had no difficulty in collecting an ample supply. This became one of my chief occupations. Tom Rockets and I used to go out into the woods with bags, and come back loaded with nuts and seeds and roots for my pets. The consequence of their being thus amply supplied with provisions was that they quickly took to laying eggs, and thus in a short time I had four or five eggs every morning. Some of these Tom and I ate, and others we sold or exchanged for meat. They, with the produce of our kitchen garden, enabled us to be pretty well independent of the provisions furnished us by the authorities. Thus, what I at first thought a misfortune turned out to be a real benefit, because the necessity of procuring food made me exert myself, and afforded me an occupation of interest. I gave them all names, and I knew each of them, and they soon learned to know me and to come at my call. Whichever I summoned came flapping up to me, cackling or crowing as the case might be, whether cock or hen. I was rather proud of the nickname which my messmates gave me of "the farmer." Often, when they were almost starving after our mess was broken up, I was able to supply myself and Tom with a comfortable breakfast and dinner. Never, indeed, were dollars better expended. I have already mentioned the various reports of disasters to the British arms, both by sea and land, which reached us from time to time. Soon after I got my fowls we were told, as an undoubted fact, that Jersey and Guernsey had been taken by surprise, and that every man, woman, and child in them had been destroyed on account of their loyalty to England; but the most terrific and heart-rending news came at last. It was that England herself had been invaded; that the enemy, having gained a secure footing in the country, had won three or four pitched battles, and had finally taken London, after a terrific resistance, when half the population were slain. Probably, under other circumstances, we should not have believed this last report unless it had been fully authenticated, though, unguarded as the shores of England at that time were, we knew that it was possible; but, dispirited and ill as many of us were, we were fully prepared to give credence to any story even of a less probable character. For two or three weeks we were left in the most dreadful state of doubt and uncertainty as to whether England still existed or not as an independent nation. Some of us fully believed that liberty no longer was to be found except in the highlands of Scotland and among the mountains of Wales.