as their remain (_sic_) with us was the only thing that ensured their safety. At Uxbridge the rage of the mob was chiefly directed against Tate, who was supposed to be Wall, and he trembled almost to convulsions, by a little arrangement I contrived to bring them quiet through the parks, and lodged them in the Duke of Portland’s before any crowd was assembled. My time since that moment has been taken up with attendance at the different offices, etc., and ministers are so bewildered by the difficulties at the Bank, etc., that it is more than usually difficult to get access to them for any time, but I have seen them all and stated to them plainly and decidedly, the situation of Pembroke, etc., giving every testimony in my power. The weather is extremely cold, the town I hear dull and unpleasant, everybody I have seen much interested about you, Mrs. Wodehouse . . . and desires her love. Joe his respects.” [No signature.] Having disposed of the rank and file of the expedition, there comes the natural question, what was its _raison d’étre_? Some persons think it was merely a fine stroke of political economy on the part of the French Government, for a considerable number of the men were convicts, and to have them killed or imprisoned at the expense of the English would undoubtedly have been a good financial arrangement; but the biography of Lazare Hoche {26} proves that a much larger idea than this was in the mind of the originator of the invasion. He was a successful general and an ambitious man, and his imagination was fired by the prowess of Napoleon:—“La France couvrait alors ses frontières de jeunes républiques, et Bonaparte saisissait les imaginations par ses merveilleux exploits en Italie. Hoche, retenu par les pénibles soins de la pacification de l’Ouest, avait suivi de son ardente pensée le vainqueur d’Arcole à travers, tous ses champs de victoire: ‘Glorieux jeune homme, s’écriait-il en se frappant le front,’ que je te porte envie! Il brûlait de faire d’aussi grandes choses, et de trouver un champ de gloire digne de son génie; il projetait donc de révolutionner l’Irlande, de la transformer en république; puis de passer en Angleterre et de la frapper au cœur. Il fit adopter son projet par le gouvernement qui, aprês s’être concerté avec les chefs des révolutionnaires irlandais, prépara à Brest une grande expédition dont Hoche eut le commandement. . . Hoche y joignit deux légions, qu’il nomma légions des Francs: il composa la première des officiers et des soldats les plus résolus, audacieux jusqu’ à la témérité; il forma la seconde, il faut le dire, d’éléments indignes, et c’est un reproche pour sa mémoire. Détestant l’Angleterre, partageant de tristes prejujés et regardant, en haine du gouvernement britannique, le peuple anglais comme le suppôt de ministres perfides et d’une odieuse