“Major,” said the Emperor to me in conclusion, “why had I not such a man as you in my service? I would have made you a Prince and a Marshal!” and here he fell into a reverie, of which I knew and respected the purport. He was thinking, doubtless, that I might have retrieved his fortunes; and indeed I have very little doubt that I might. Very soon after, coffee was brought by Monsieur Marchand, Napoleon’s valet-de-chambre, and after partaking of that beverage, and talking upon the politics of the day, the Emperor withdrew, leaving me deeply impressed by the condescension he had shown in this remarkable interview. CHAPTER III A Peep into Spain—Account of the Origin and Services of the Ahmednuggar Irregulars HEADQUARTERS, MORELLA: _September_ 15, 1838 I have been here for some months, along with my young friend Cabrera: and in the hurry and bustle of war—daily on guard and in the batteries for sixteen hours out of the twenty-four, with fourteen severe wounds and seven musket-balls in my body—it may be imagined that I have had little time to think about the publication of my memoirs. _Inter arma silent leges_—in the midst of fighting be hanged to writing! as the poet says; and I never would have bothered myself with a pen, had not common gratitude incited me to throw off a few pages. Along with Oraa’s troops, who have of late been beleaguering this place, there was a young Milesian gentleman, Mr. Toone O’Connor Emmett Fitzgerald Sheeny by name, a law student, and a member of Gray’s Inn, and what he called _Bay Ah_ of Trinity College, Dublin. Mr. Sheeny was with the Queen’s people, not in a military capacity, but as representative of an English journal; to which, for a trifling weekly remuneration, he was in the habit of transmitting accounts of the movements of the belligerents, and his own opinion of the politics of Spain. Receiving, for the discharge of his duty, a couple of guineas a week from the proprietors of the journal in question, he was enabled, as I need scarcely say, to make such a show in Oraa’s camp as only a Christino general officer, or at the very least a colonel of a regiment, can afford to keep up.