“We arrived at Abrantes—right back to where we started from the day before,—an' was again made a show of about the town by the braggadocios o' Frenchmen. One o' their generals came up to me—a finikin little hop-o'-my-thumb fellow, who could talk a little broken English; an' says he, ‘You Englisman, eh?’—‘Yes,’ says I, ‘in throth I am.’—‘From what part?’—‘From a place called Ballinamore, in the county of Leitrim.’ ‘Is dat in Hirlaund?’—‘Yes, faith,’ says I, ‘it is.’—‘Ah bon,’ says the general, ‘you be von Catholic—von slave d'Angleterre.’—‘No, Monseer, I'm no _slave_ to Angleterre, though I _am_ a Catholic. There's a little differ in our religion, to be sure, but we are all _one_ afther all.’—‘Vell, Sare, you be Catholic, an Frenchmen be Catholic. You give me all de information of de English army, and vee make you sargeant in de French Guard, and give you de l'argent; you can den fight against de heretick English.’—‘Thank you,’ says I, ‘Monseer General, but I'd much rather be excused, if you plase. I know no differ between Ireland and England when once out o' the counthries; we may squabble a bit at home, just to keep us alive, but you mistake us if you think we would do such a thing as fight against our King and counthry. Come, boys, says I, (turning about to my comrades,) if any o' yiz want promotion an' plenty o' money, now is your time. All you'll be asked to do, is to fight against your ould king, your ould counthry, an' your ould rigiment. Any o' yiz that likes this, let him spake now.’ The General was a little astonished, an' so was the officers with him. There was a bit of a grin on all my comrades' faces, but divil a word one o' them answered.—‘O! I see how it is,’ says I, ‘none o' yiz accepts the General's offer; so now take off your caps an' give three hearty cheers for ould England, Ireland, an' Scotland, against the world.’ Hoo! by the holy St. Dinis! you never hard such a shout—it was like blowing up a mine. The General hadn't a word in his gob; he saw there was no use o' pumping us any more, and so he turned round smiling to one of his officers, an' says he in French (which I understood well, though he didn't think it) ‘_En verité ce sont de braves gens! si toute l'armée Britannique est comme cet echantillon-ci, tant pis pour nous autres_:’ and galloped off. The maning o' that was this, you see—that _we were the broth o' boys, an' if the remaindhar o' the English army was like us, the divil a much chance the French would have_.” “It was nae bad compliment, Corporal,” said Sergeant M'Fadgen; a sentiment in which the rest of the guard unanimously joined. “By my soul it wasn't, Sergeant, and we all felt what it was to have the honour of our regiment in our hands, and to stick to it like good soldiers, as we ought through thick an' thin.”