It was an unfortunate affair, and was made the most of by the mob. I knew Sergeant Brody well—perhaps I was one of his most intimate friends; he was then about twenty years of age. In point of duty he was strictly correct, and much esteemed by his officers; his education and intelligence were far beyond that commonly possessed by soldiers, and altogether he would have formed an agreeable companion, were it not that his good qualities were tinged with petulance and impatience of contradiction, arising, no doubt, from a consciousness of his abilities, added to a temper naturally irritable and fiery. I happened to be on duty when the deed was done; but next day I was admitted to see him. His mind was overwhelmed with horror, and he pressed my offered hand in silence, while he looked doubtfully in my face, as if he asked, Can I expect you to feel for me?—do you not consider me a monster? I understood him—‘I do feel for you,’ said I: ‘I feel all the awful exigency of your situation; but I will not forsake you—command me in anything that can serve you.’ ‘This is more than I expected,’ he replied, ‘but I cannot now speak to you, my mind is in the most gloomy confusion; but I hope you will come to see me when you can.’ And on my assurance that I would, we parted. He never entered into any particulars of the unfortunate affair, even to me; but his feelings were too agonising for concealment. Every indulgence was given him consistent with his safety, which he could expect; and being allowed to visit him, I generally saw him every day. As the assizes approached, he summoned up all his energy for the event—death seemed a dreadful thing, no doubt, should such be his sentence; but the idea of a public execution was to him worse than a thousand deaths. On this subject he often spoke to me, and with such fearful emphasis of manner, that I expected the horrible idea would unsettle his reason. Some days previous to his trial, however, when I visited him, a wonderful change seemed to have taken place in his mind; he talked of the event with composure—every wild passion of his soul seemed swallowed up in a melancholy softness; he talked of his friends, of what the world would say of him after he was dead, and seemed to derive pleasure from speculating on the nature of the immortal world he thought himself on the point of entering. Yet at times I could observe a triumph in his eye, when he adverted to the attendant circumstances of an execution, and he once or twice even hazarded a jest on the subject. All this was so utterly at variance with his former feelings, that I did not know what to think of it. When we were parting, I mentioned that as I was going on guard next day, probably I would not have an opportunity of seeing him before his trial. ‘I am sorry for that,’ said he, ‘for I have something important to say to you; but I may as well say it now—Do you see no difference in me since you saw me last?’ ‘More than I can account for,’ said I.