Humbert's was a bold but wild experiment, but still it evinced the daring character of the adventurer. He had encountered difficulties that would have disheartened a soldier less enthusiastic. To land with 1,200 men, in a country in full military occupation-as Ireland then was without money, necessaries, or any resources but what chance and talent gave, proved, indeed, that the French general was no common soldier.

The sketch given by Bishop Stock of the invading army and their daring leader is not only graphic, but faithfully descriptive of the bold adventurer and his hardy followers:

the benefits of French fraternity. Let not the ties of kindred, the seductions of ease, or any other unmanly attachment to the comforts of life, teach you to neglect this friendly call of your countryman and fellow-citizen.

"IRISHMEN,

"KILMAINE, LIEUT.-GEN."*

"Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, Union!

"You have not forgot Bantry-bay; you know what efforts France has made to assist you. Her affections for you, her desire for avenging your wrongs and insur

ing your independence can never be impaired.

"After several unsuccessful attempts, behold Frenchmen arrived amongst you. "They come to support your courage, to share your dangers, to join their arms, and to mix their blood with yours in the sacred cause of liberty.

"Brave Irishmen, our cause is common; like you, we abhor the avaricious and blood-thirsty policy of an oppressive government; like you, we hold as indefeasible the right of all nations to liberty; like you, we are persuaded that the peace of the world shall ever be troubled, as long as the British ministry is suffered to make, with impunity, a traffic of the industry, labour, and blood of the people.

"But exclusive of the same interests which unite us, we have powerful motives to love and defend you.

"Have we not been the pretext of the cruelty exercised against you by the cabinet of St. James's? The heartfelt interest you have shewn in the grand events of our revolution-has it not been imputed to you as a crime? Are not tortures and death continually hanging over such of you as are barely suspected of being our friends? Let us unite then and march to glory.

"We swear the most inviolable respect for your properties, your laws, and all your religious opinions. Be free; be masters in your own country. We look for no other conquest than that of your liberty-no other success than yours.

"The moment of breaking your chains is arrived; our triumphant troops are now flying to the extremities of the earth, to tear up the roots of the wealth and tyranny of our enemies. That frightful Colossus is mouldering away in every part. Can there be any Irishman base enough to separate himself at such a happy juncture from the grand interests of his country? If such there be, brave friends, let him be chased from the country he betrays, and let his property become the reward of those generous men who know how to fight and die.

"Irishmen, recollect the late defeats which your enemies have experienced from the French; recollect the plains of Honscoote, Toulon, Quiberon, and Ostend; recollect America, free from the moment she wished to be so.

"The contest between you and your oppressors cannot be long.

"Union! liberty! the Irish republic!-such is our shout, let us march-our hearts are devoted to you; our glory is in your happiness.

"Health and Fraternity,
"HUMBERT, GEN."

*Lieutenant-General Kilmaine did not arrive with the French troops."

"Intelligence, activity, temperance, patience, to a surprising degree, appeared to be combined in the soldiery that came over with Humbert, together with the exactest obedience to discipline. Yet, if you except the grenadiers, they had nothing to catch the eye. Their stature for the most part was low, their complexions pale and sallow, their clothes much the worse for wear; to a superficial observer they would have appeared incapable of enduring almost any hardship. These were the men, however, of whom it was presently observed, that they could be well content to live on bread or potatoes, to drink water, to make the stones of the street their bed, and to sleep in their clothes, with no covering but the canopy of heaven. One-half of their number had served in Italy under Bonaparte; the rest were of the army of the Rhine, where they had suffered distresses that well accounted for thin persons and wan looks. Several of them declared, with all the marks of sincerity, that at the siege of Mentz, during the preceding winter, they had for a long time slept on the ground in holes made four feet deep under the snow; and an officer, pointing to his leather small-clothes, assured the bishop that he had not taken them off for a twelvemonth.

"Humbert, the leader of this singular body of men, was himself as extraordinary a personage as any in his army; of a good height and shape, in the full vigour of life, prompt to decide, quick in execution, apparently master of his art, you could not refuse him the praise of a good officer, while his physiognomy forbade you to like him as a man. His eye, which was small and sleepy (the effect, probably, of much watching), cast a side-long glance of insidiousness and even of crueltyit was the eye of a cat preparing to spring upon her prey. His education and manners were indicative of a person sprung from the lowest orders of society, though he knew how (as most of his countrymen can do) to assume, where it was convenient, the deportment of a gentleFor learning, he had scarcely enough to enable him to write his own name. His passions were furious, and all his behaviour seemed marked with the characters of roughness and violence. A narrower observation of him, however, served to discover that much of this roughness was the result of art, being assumed with the view of extorting, by terror, a ready compliance with his demands.

man.

"This latter trait in Humbert's character was personally experienced by the bishop. An offer of the presidency of the Connaught Directory was declined by his lordship, on the plea of his sworn allegiance to the king-a pledge, he said, never to be violated; and a command that he should issue orders to place every horse and vehicle in the country at Humbert's disposal, for mounting his cavalry and the transport of his guns, stores, and baggage, was evaded by an assurance that his lordship had been but lately a resident, and, from want of local knowledge or authority, had not the means of compliance with the French general's request.

"Next morning, Humbert finding that no cars or horses had been procured, became furious, uttered a torrent of vulgar abuse, presented a pistol at the bishop's eldest son, and declared he would punish his father's disobedience by sending him to France; and accordingly he

marched off the bishop towards the shore under a sergeant's guard; but when they had advanced a short distance, a mounted orderly recalled the party, and Humbert apologized to the bishop, and excused, under the plea of military necessity, a very gross departure from the laws of politesse.

"The 24th, was occupied by a French reconnaissance on Ballina, which was repelled by a party of carbineers and some yeomanry. In the evening the royalists advanced to Killalla, in return, had a smart skirmish with the enemy, and after losing a few men, were hastily driven back."

CHAPTER XXII.

BATTLE OF CASTLEBAR.

ON Sunday, the 26th, Humbert took the offensive, leaving six officers and two hundred men in Killalla, to garrison the town, secure his spare ammunition, and drill such recruits as should join the standard of the republic. The French mustered about nine hundred bayonets, with treble that number of peasant partisans. They entered Ballina unopposed, and Humbert expressed considerable disappointment when no respectable persons welcomed his entrée-and the body of an active agent suspended to a tree, executed by the troops before they retreated for having a French commission in his pocket, while it afforded an exhibition for Gallic civism,* gave still but a sorry omen of success.

Before he had commenced his operations, the French general felt difficulties, which, in some degree, he was unprepared for. He came totally unprovided with money-and in the co-operation he was led from the reports of Irish agents to build upon as certain, he was miserably disappointed. The first of these difficulties he endeavoured to overcome by the issue of assignats on the Irish Directory that was to be.

"For the first two or three days many people did apply for such drafts to the French commissary of stores, whose whole time appeared to be taken up with writing them. Indeed, the bishop himself was of opinion that the losers would act wisely to accept of them, not, as he told the people, that they would ever produce payment where it was promised, but because they might serve as documents to our own government, when, at a future period, it should come to inquire into the losses sustained by its loyal subjects. The trouble, however, of the commissary, in issuing drafts on a bank in prospect, was not of long duration. The people smiled first, and he joined himself in the smile at last, when he offered this airy security."t

The second of the French leader's difficulties was still more vexatious than what arose from an empty military chest. In France, it was generally believed that the Irish, Protestant and Catholic, were equally ill-affected to the existing government, and Humbert had been assured that the announcement of a landing would alone be re

* "The French officers having found his body suspended when they entered the town, each of them gave it the fraternal embrace, and bedewed it with tears of sympathetic civism; and after having exposed it some time in the street, to excite the indignation of the populace against the loyalists, it was carried to the Romish chapel, where it lay in state with as much pomp and ceremony as if he had been the greatest hero or patriot of the age."-Musgrave.

† Bishop Stock's Narrative.