The offer I had made to Crofts to barter the assignat for an English note; my urgent entreaty to have it restored to me; the arguments I had employed to persuade him that no suspicion could attach to my possession of it,--were all narrated with so little of exaggeration that I was actually unable to say what assertion I could object to, while I was conscious that the inferences sought to be drawn from them were false and unjust. Having displayed with consummate skill the critical position this paper had involved me in, he took the opportunity of contrasting the anxiety I evinced for my escape from my difficulty, with the temperate conduct of my antagonist, whose loyalty left him no other course than to retain possession of the note, and inquire into the circumstances by which it reached my hands. Irritated by the steady determination of Crofts, it was said that I endeavored by opprobrious epithets and insulting language to provoke a quarrel, which a sense of my inferiority as an antagonist rendered a thing impossible to be thought of. Baffled in every way, I was said to have rushed from the room, double-locking it on the outside, and hurried down the stairs and out of the barrack; not to escape, however, but with a purpose very different,--to return in a few moments accompanied by three fellows, whom I passed with the guard as men wishing to recruit. To ascend the stairs, unlock the door, and fall on the imprisoned officer, was the work of an instant. His defence, although courageous and resolute, was but brief. His sword being broken, he was felled by a blow of a bludgeon, and thus believed dead. The ruffians ransacked his pockets, and departed. The same countersign which admitted, passed them out as they went; and when morning broke the wounded man was found weltering in his blood, but with life still remaining, and strength enough to recount what had occurred. By a mere accident, it was stated, the French bank-note had not been consigned to his pocket, but fell during the struggle, and was discovered the next day on the floor. These were the leading features of an accusation, which, however improbable while thus briefly and boldly narrated, hung together with a wonderful coherence in the speech of the lawyer, supported as they were by the number of small circumstances corroboratory of certain immaterial portions of the story. Thus, the political opinions I professed; the doubtful--nay, equivocal--position I occupied; the intercourse with France or Frenchmen, as proved by the _billet de banque_; my sudden disappearance after the event, and my escape thither, where I continued to live until, as it was alleged, I believed that years had eradicated all trace of, if not my crime, myself,--such were the statements displayed with all the specious inferences of habitual plausibility, and to confirm which by evidence Sir Montague Crofts was called to give his testimony.