from the Portuguese standing by; and also got the officer in command of the guard at the mole-head, to clear the pier of all useless hands, and place sentries here and there over stray packages, put down while the owners sought their own proper boats among the crowd. And so at length our work was fairly pushed through, and though late, I managed to get my party safe aboard our friend the whaler, who had kept his signal lights burning for us. Long before, the _Doris_ had bore up, and under bare poles had drifted with a large portion of the fleet to the southward; and I saw no more of her, until some months afterwards I joined her in Macao Roads." This was in the year 1814; soon afterwards the peace with America put an end to our midshipman's prospects of advancement in the navy, to his great and life-long regret. He obtained a commission in the Scots Greys, and exchanged into the 58th Regiment, then under orders for service in the West Indies, where his health failed him, and he was compelled to retire on half-pay. But his love for the sea soon induced him to enter the merchant service, in which he made many voyages to the East. This also, a severe illness obliged him to resign, and to abandon the sea for ever. He then came to Canada, to seek his fortune in the backwoods, where I found him in 1833. Mr. O'Brien's relations with his neighbours in the backwoods were always kindly, and gratifying to both parties. One evening, some friends of his heard voices on the water, as a boat rowed past his grounds. One man asked "Who lives here?" "Mr. O'Brien," was the reply. "What is he like?" "He's a regular old tory." "Oh then, I suppose he's very proud and distant?" But that he was either proud or distant, his neighbour would not allow, and other voices joined in describing him as the freest and kindest of men--still they all agreed that he was a "regular old tory." The colonel was the last man in the world to object to such an epithet, but those who used it meant probably to describe his sturdy, uncompromising principles, and manly independence. A more utterly guileless, single-hearted man never breathed. Warm and tender-hearted, humble-minded and forgiving, he deplored his hastiness of temper, which was, indeed, due to nervous irritability, the result of severe illness coupled with heavy mental strain when young, from the effects of which he never entirely recovered. He was incapable of a mean thought or dishonourable deed, and never fully realized that there could be others who were unlike him in this respect. Hence, during the long course of his happy and useful, but not wholly prosperous life, he met each such lapse from his own high standard of honour with the same indignant surprise and pain. His habitual reverent-mindedness led him to respect men of all shades of thought and feeling, while to sympathize with sorrow and suffering was as natural to him as the air he breathed.