These things, with native quickness, they soon remarked. They saw the consideration and politeness with which the bishop and his family were treated; they saw several Protestant gentlemen suffered to return to their homes ‘on parole.’ They saw, too--worse grievance of all--how all attempts at pillage were restrained, or severely punished, and they asked themselves, ‘To what end a revolt, if neither massacre nor robbery were to follow? If they wanted masters and rulers, sure they had the English that they were used to, and could at least understand.’ Such were the causes, and such the reasonings, which gradually ate deeper and deeper into their minds, rendering them at first sullen, gloomy, and suspicious, and at last insubordinate, and openly insulting to us. Their leaders were the first to exhibit this state of feeling. Affecting a haughty disdain for us, they went about with disparaging stories of the French soldiery; and at last went even so far as to impugn their courage! In one of the versions of the affair at Castlebar, it was roundly asserted that but for the Irish threatening to fire on them, the French would have turned and fled; while in another, the tactics of that day were all ascribed to the military genius of Neal Kerrigan, who, by-the-bye, was never seen from early morning until late the same afternoon, when he rode into Castlebar on a fine bay horse that belonged to Captain Shortall of the Royal Artillery! If the feeling between us and our allies was something less than cordial, nothing could be more friendly than that which subsisted between us and such of the Royalists as we came in contact with. The officers who became our prisoners were treated with every deference and respect. Two field-officers and a captain of carbineers dined daily with the general, and Serasin entertained several others. We liked them greatly; and I believe I am not flattering if I say that they were equally satisfied with us. _Nos amis l’ennemis_, was the constant expression used in talking of them; and every day drew closer the ties of this comrade regard and esteem. Such was the cordial tone of intimacy maintained between us, that I remember well, one evening at Humbert’s table, an animated discussion being carried on between the general and an English staff-officer on the campaign itself--the Royalist averring that in marching southward at all, a gross and irreparable mistake had been made, and that if the French had occupied Sligo, and extended their wings towards the north, they would have secured a position of infinitely greater strength, and also become the centre for rallying round them a population of a very different order from the half-starved tribes of Mayo. Humbert affected to say that the reason for his actual plan was that twenty thousand French were daily expected to land in Lough Swilly, and that the western attack was merely to occupy time and attention, while the more formidable movement went on elsewhere.