Master John Falstaff, at this period, occupied apartments in one of His Majesty’s fortresses in Calais, in favour of which he had vacated an official suite in the Government-house of the same town. Here, for some months, he had discharged the duties of an onerous but subordinate post, wholly unsuited to his peculiar genius. Even at that early period the Government of England was celebrated for a habit of injudicious selection in the matter of public appointments--putting usually the right man in the wrong place, and _vice versa_. Falstaff--burning to distinguish himself in the service of his native land (and having his own private reasons for wishing to do so at a convenient distance)--exerted his court interest to obtain a colonial appointment. At the head of an invading army, or in command of a beleaguered city, there is no reason to doubt that he would have acquitted himself with satisfaction to all parties; but, Government having nothing more suitable to offer him than a deputy-collectorship of the wool duties (for which, it is true, he was certainly qualified on the grounds accepted by British Governments in all ages--his mother’s father having been a wool-stapler), what could be expected but a directly contrary result? The exact deficit in the Falstaff accounts has not been preserved in the public records. But there is no reason to doubt that it was on a scale commensurate with the greatness of our hero’s soul, inasmuch as, after a few months’ probation, an intimation was forwarded to him that his resignation of office would be accepted. It is at least probable that the nation required his services in a wider and more honourable field. But of this we have no means of judging accurately, an adverse destiny placing it out of the ex-deputy-collector’s power to avail himself of any such pending advantages. Adverse destiny, in his case, took the shape of an Anglo-French jailer. Falstaff, in fact, like all men born to sway large destinies, had a lavish disregard of trifling expenditure. Like Julius Cæsar, he contracted debts; that is to say, as much like Julius Cæsar as possible--our hero lacking that arch-insolvent’s facilities of obtaining credit. With two millions of somebody else’s money (about the amount, I believe, on the Julian schedule), what would not Falstaff have done? It is difficult to answer. It may be safely stated, however, that it was from no fault of John Falstaff’s that Julius Cæsar had the best of him in this respect. At any rate, having started this historic parallel between these two great men, we may bring it to a triumphant close by stating that young Falstaff, like young Cæsar, was now a captive in the hands of pirates and waiting for his ransom.