It was with no slight mixture of surprise and dismay that I now detected his utter despair of all success, and that he regarded the whole as a complete forlorn-hope. He had merely taken the command to involve the French Government in the cause, and so far compromise the national character that all retreat would be impossible. We shall be all cut to pieces or taken prisoners the day after we land,’ was his constant exclamation, ‘and then, but not till then, will they think seriously in France of a suitable expedition.’ There was no heroism, still less was there any affectation of recklessness in this avowal. By nature he was a rough, easy, good-tempered fellow, who liked his profession less for its rewards than for its changeful scenes and moving incidents--his one predominating feeling being that France should give rule to the whole world, and the principles of her Revolution he everywhere pre-eminent. To promote this consummation the loss of an army was of little moment. Let the cause but triumph in the end, and the cost was not worth fretting about. Next to this sentiment was his hatred of England, and all that was English. Treachery, falsehood, pride, avarice, grasping covetousness, and unscrupulous aggression, were the characteristics by which he described the nation; and he made the little knowledge he had gleaned from newspapers and intercourse so subservient to this theory, that I was an easy convert to his opinion; so that, ere long, my compassion for the wrongs of Ireland was associated with the most profound hatred of her oppressors. To be sure, I should have liked the notion that we ourselves were to have some more active share in the liberation of Irishmen than the mere act of heralding another and more successful expedition; but even in this thought there was romantic self-devotion, not unpleasing to the mind of a boy; but, strange enough, I was the only one who felt it. The first sight of land to one on sea is always an event of uncommon interest; but how greatly increased is the feeling when that land is to be the scene of a perilous exploit--the cradle of his ambition, or perhaps his grave! All my speculations about the expedition--all my daydreams of success, or my anxious hours of dark forebodings--never brought the matter so palpably before me as the dim outline of a distant headland, which, I was told, was part of the Irish coast. This was on the 17th of August, but on the following day we stood further out to sea again, and saw no more of it. The three succeeding ones we continued to beat up slowly to the northward against a head wind and a heavy sea; but on the evening of the 21st the sun went down in mellow splendour, and a light air from the south springing up, the sailors pronounced a most favourable change of weather--a prophecy that a starry night and a calm sea soon confirmed.