Perhaps I might have been longer a believer in this theory, had I not perceived signs of a deceptive character in these our worthy allies; many who, to our faces, wore nothing but looks of gratitude and delight, no sooner mixed with their fellows than their downcast faces and dogged expression betrayed some inward sense of disappointment. One very general source of dissatisfaction arose from the discovery, that we were not prepared to pay our allies! We had simply come to arm and lead them, to shed our own blood, and pledge our fortunes in their cause; but we certainly had brought no military chest to bribe their patriotism, nor stimulate their nationality; and this I soon saw was a grievous disappointment. In virtue of this shameful omission on our part, they deemed the only resource was to be made officers, and thus crowds of uneducated, semi-civilised vagabonds were every hour assailing us with their claims to the epaulette. Of the whole number of these, I remember but three who had ever served at all; two were notorious drunkards, and the third a confirmed madman, from a scalp wound he had received when fighting against the Turks. Many, however, boasted high-sounding names, and were, at least so Kerrigan said, men of the first families in the land. Our general-in-chief saw little of them while at Killala, his principal intercourse being with the bishop and his family; but Colonel Charost soon learned to read their true character, and from that moment conceived the most disastrous issue to our plans. The most trustworthy of them was a certain O’Donnell, who, although not a soldier, was remarked to possess a greater influence over the rabble volunteers than any of the others. He was a young man of the half-squire class, an ardent and sincere patriot, after his fashion; but that fashion, it must be owned, rather partook of the character of class-hatred and religious animosity than the features of a great struggle for national independence. He took a very low estimate of the fighting qualities of his countrymen, and made no secret of declaring it. ‘You would be better without them altogether,’ said he one day to Charost; ‘but if you must have allies, draw them up in line, select one-third of the best, and arm them.’ ‘And the rest?’ asked Charost. ‘Shoot them,’ was the answer. This conversation is on record--indeed, I believe there is yet one witness living to corroborate it. I have said that we were very hard worked, but I must fain acknowledge that the real amount of business done was very insignificant, so many were the mistakes, misconceptions, and interruptions, not to speak of the time lost by that system of conciliation of which I have already made mention. In our distribution of arms there was little selection practised or possible. The process was a brief one, but it might have been briefer.