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was wounded in many places, and precipitated into the ditch; and, as his followers were unable to bring him off, he remained on the ice until next morning, when, being still alive, he became a prisoner to the French. Their first purpose was to execute him as a traitor, from which they were with difficulty diverted by a letter from the British general, accompanied by documents to establish how long he had been in the English service. The unfortunate gentleman was then permitted to retire from the hospital to his own house in the town, where he did not long survive the wounds he had received.1

I did not, you may believe, fail to visit the unfortunate spot, where Skerret, so celebrated for his gallantry in the Peninsula, Gore, Mercer, Carleton, Macdonald, and other officers of rank and distinction, fell upon this unfortunate occasion. I was assured that General Skerret, after receiving a severe wound by which he was disabled, gave his watch and purse to a French soldier, requesting to be carried to the hospital; and that the ruffian dragged him down from the banquette only to pierce him with his bayonet. But I have since learned, from better authority, that this gallant officer fell on the spot.

1 I have since been informed, from unquestionable authority, that this officer was not ill-treated by the French. It is remarkable, that he had personally ventured into the town to ascertain the possibility of success, the day before the attack was made.

[See Gazette of General Sir Thomas Grahame's despatches, dated Calmhout, 10th March, 1814, &c., in the Edinburgh Annual Register of that year, Appendix, p. cciii., &c.]

BERGEN-OP-ZOOM-NIGHT SCENE.

19

While I listened to the details of this unhappy affair, and walked slowly and sadly with my conductor from one bastion to another, admiring the strength of the defences which British valour had so nearly surmounted, and mourning over the evil fate which rendered that valour fruitless, the hour of the evening, gradually sinking from twilight into darkness, suited well with the melancholy subject of my enquiries. Broad flashes of lambent lightning illuminated, from time to time, the bastions which we traversed; and the figure of my companion, a tall, thin, elderly man, of a grave and interesting appearance, and who seemed, from his voice and manner, deeply impressed by recollections of the melancholy events which he detailed, was such as might appear to characterise their historian. A few broad and heavy drops of rain occasionally fell and ceased. And to aid the general effect, we heard from below the hollow roll of the drums announcing the setting of the watch, and the deep and sullen WER DA of the sentinels, as they challenged those who passed their station. I assure you this is no piece of imaginary scenery got up to adorn my letter, but the literal circumstances of my perambulation around the ramparts of Bergen-op-Zoom.

I presume you are now in active preparation for the moors, where I wish you much sport. Do not fail to preserve for me my due share in your friendship, notwithstanding that, on the subject of Bergen-op-Zoom, I am now qualified to give you story for story. Such are the advantages which travellers gain over their friends. My next letter

to you shall contain more interesting, as well as more recent and more triumphant, military details.

I must not omit to mention that, in the Church of Bergen-op-Zoom, a tablet of marble, erected by their brother officers, records the names of the brave men who fell in the valorous, but ill-fated attack upon this famous fortress. For them, as for their predecessors who fell at Fontenoy, the imagination of the Briton will long body forth the emblematic forms of Honour and Freedom weeping by their monuments. Once more, farewell, and remember me.

LETTER III.

PAUL TO HIS COUSIN PETER.

Retrospect-Surrender of Paris-Bourbons RestoredEmigrants-Noblesse-Clergy-Liberalists.

THY politics, my dear Peter, are of the right Scottish cast. Thou knowest our old proverbial character of being wise behind the hand. After all, the wisdom which is rather deduced from events than formed upon predictions, is best calculated for a country politician, and smacks of the prudence as well as of the aforesaid proverbial attribute of our national character. Yet, believe me, that though a more strict seclusion of the dethroned Emperor of France might have prevented his debarkment at Cannes, and although we and our allies might have spared the perilous farce of leaving him a globe and sceptre to play withal, there were, within France itself, elements sufficiently jarring to produce, sooner or later, a dreadful explosion. You daily politicians are so little in the practice of recollecting last year's news, that I may be excused recalling some leading facts to your recollection, which will serve as a text to my future lucubrations.

The first surrender of Paris had been preceded by so much doubt, and by so many difficulties, that

the final victory seems to have been a matter not only of exultation, but even of surprise, to the victors themselves. This great event was regarded, rather as a gratification of the most romantic and extravagant expectations, than as a natural consequence of that course of reaction, the ebb of which brought the allies to the gates of Paris, as its tide had carried Bonaparte to those of Berlin and Vienna. Pleased and happy with themselves, and dazzled with the glory of their own exploit, the victors were in no humour to impose harsh conditions upon the vanquished; and the French, on their part, were delighted at their easy escape from the horrors of war, internal and external, of siege, pillage, and contribution. Bonaparte's govern

ment had of late become odious to the bulk of the people, by the pressure of taxation, by the recurring terrors of the proscription, but, above all, by the repeated disasters which the nation had latterly sustained. The constitutional charter, under which the Bourbon family were restored, was not only a valuable gift to those who really desired to be ensured against the re-establishment of despotism, but operated as a salvo to the wounded feelings of the still more numerous class, who wished that the crimes and calamities of the Revolution should not appear to be altogether thrown away, and who could now appeal to this Bill of Rights, as a proof that the French nation had not sinned and suffered in vain. The laboratory and chemical apparatus which were to have produced universal equality of rights, had indeed exploded about the ears of the philosophical experimentalists, yet they con

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