slip on board the ship. Over-fatigue, hunger than by the extraordinary attachment ex-
and excitement, brought on an attack of hibited towards him by a gigantic Highland
high fever. In her ravings, she repeatedly piper, serving with the regiment, whom he
uttered the name of George Prendergast, and had chosen as his body servant, and who,
her connection with him was thus first dis-
covered. The Colonel, of course, was wroth
very wroth with both the lovers; she should
be sent home instantly by the first ship to
her father, Sir Ulick; but this she positively
refused to agree in, and in her refusal she
was aided and abetted by the wives of all
the married officers, whose interest was
powerfully excited by the romance of the
affair. So the Colonel, like a sensible man
as he was, soon gave in, and the lovers were
married as soon as we got into barracks.
Mrs. Prendergast became at once the pet of
everybody in the regiment; and after a very
short time I lost my clerk, as Prendergast scandal-mongers: who began to mention
was promoted to duties which brought him
into more immediate contact with the Colo-
nel.

A year passed away-a year, during which the Legion suffered numberless hardships and passed through numberless dangers-but through hardships and dangers this high-born Irish girl always bore herself bravely and ably doing her duty to her husband. Prendergast was now a sergeant, a daring soldier, and one likely to win further promotion. He was the Colonel's prime favorite; every officer of the regiment spoke well of him; and his wife and her baby-for she had a little son of a month old-were adored by all the ladies.

indeed, was scarcely ever absent from his side. Closely attended by Archy Ledingham, as the piper was called, Captain Hepburn was a daily visitor in our lines, friendly with the officers, genial with the men, and passing no one without a kind word or glance; but it soon began to be noticed that he invariably halted for some little time at Prendergast's tent, into which he passed, while the Highlander remained keeping watch outside. These visits constantly paid to a very pretty woman, invariably during the absence of her husband on regimental duties, of course soon became the subject of comment among the

Mrs. Prendergast's game, at first with smiles, and then with scorn; and who would probably have proceeded further, in their amiable self-imposed task, when an event occurred which effectually silenced them.

One morning (the particulars were not generally known for some time, but they oozed out, as all secrets will): one morning, Mrs. Prendergast made her way to our Colonel's tent, and, flinging herself on her knees before him, implored his protection from the persecution to which she was exposed by Captain Hepburn, and of which she dared not tell her husband. That morning, she said, she had told him she should seek the protection of the Colonel, and he had left her tent vowing vengeance. The kind old Colonel raised her from the ground, comforted her in the best manner he could, told her she need fear no further molestation, and dismissed her trembling, but re-assured; then, after consulting with two or three intimate friends, he despatched a strong letter to the commanding officer of Hepburn's regiment.

But theirs, like all other human happiness, was not without a cloud. The great battle on the fifth of May, 1836, had been fought, the Carlists had been driven back, and the Legion was lying encamped outside the walls of San Sebastian. The Tenth Munster lay at the extreme verge of the line; and next to us was a Scotch regiment, with the men and officers of which we soon became very Within an hour's time from the despatch friendly. Among these officers, the most of the letter, Colonel Saunderson entered our frequent and the most welcome in our lines lines, and sought an interview with our was a Captain Evan Hepburn: a tall, dashing, Colonel, in which he stated that he keenly high-spirited fellow, whose father was a laird felt the disgrace which Captain Hepburn of one of the Western isles, and who, after had brought upon his regiment, not only by having been expelled from Sandhurst, rusti- his persecution of Mrs. Prendergast, but by cated at Cambridge, and forbidden the pater- his indulgence in gambling, and the ruin he nal roof, had obtained a commission in the had entailed upon some of his junior officers. Legion, and had already rendered himself Colonel Saunderson added, that he had on conspicuous—not less by his reckless audacity, the previous day severely lectured Hepburn

for his conduct, and that on the receipt of this fresh complaint he had again sent for him; but, that the orderly who bore his message had utterly failed in delivering it, for neither Hepburn nor his Highland follower was to be found.

The thought that they had deserted to the Carlists at once struck all who heard the story, and the confirmation of the idea was not long wanting. That night, a company of the Tenth Munsters, of which I was in command, and a company of the Scotch regiment, were told off to perform outlying picket duty, that is, to form our foremost cordon of sentries, nearest to the enemy's lines. It was a black and heavy night; we had marched on without speaking-the two companies in close proximity; when, as we neared the place where the sentries were to be posted, we heard the distant tramp of the enemy's relief guard going their rounds, and the shrill notes of a bagpipe rang through the air. I still distinctly hear the subdued growl of indignation which rose from the Scotchmen when this sound smote upon their ears, and the deep Gaelic oath of vengeance which they uttered, as the well-known notes of the old Jacobite air, "Wha wadna fecht for Charlie ?' came surging over the plain.

For three days and nights this continued; the piper went round with the relief every time the guard was changed, playing as loudly as possible all his old national tunes, and goading his ancient comrades to madness.

looked, but could not see Levingham by his
side; I cast a hurried glance along my own
ranks, and discovered Prendergast within a
few feet of me. By the expression of his
face I saw that he, too, saw and knew his old
enemy; in an instant his musket was at his
shoulder, and before the opposing lines
clashed together, and with the cheer yet
ringing on his lips, Captain Hepburn fell to
the ground a corpse, shot dead by Prender-
gast's hand.

The action was over, the last desperate attempt of the Carlists had been repulsed, their fortifications carried, and they themselves utterly routed. I was wandering about on the plain, endeavoring to muster the remnants of my company, when I came. upon a little knot of soldiers, bending over what I imagined, at first, to be the dead body of some favorite comrade. Pushing through the crowd, I discovered, the body of Prendergast's wife. She had left the lines with a flask of wine and some bread for her husband, and was making her way towards the place where the conflict was raging, when a portion of a shell struck her in the chest, and put an end to the earthly trials of this devoted girl. Sick at heart, and with tears in my eyes, I was turning from the group, when my arm was pressed by the kind grasp of the old Colonel.

"That is the saddest sight I ever saw," said he; "worse, far worse, than a scene I I have just come from. You recollect that scoundrelly Scotch piper who deserted with Hepburn? He had built himself into one of those stone huts, but the men of his old regiment found him out, burst into the place, and discovering him in the second story, four of them seized him, two by his hands, and two by his feet; and, then, chaunting meanwhile a dismal Highland croon, they swung him between them, and dashed out his brains against the wall."

On the morning of the fourth day after Hepburn's desertion, it. was determined to attack the Carlist lines: principally with a view of driving the enemy from a row of two-storied stone huts, which they had fortified, and from whence they could keep up a most harrassing fire on our sentries. The action commenced at seven o'clock; and, after three hours' hard fighting, a tremendous charge of our gallant fellows broke the Carlist lines, and sent them in full retreat to Twenty years have passed since that day, their row of fortifications. Here they halted, and not many now remain to whom these re-formed, and again advanced. Often, in circumstances are known; but in the lunatio my dreams, rings in my ears the demoniac ward of the Kerry County Hospital there is yell with which the decimated Carlist band still a tall, grey-haired, soldierly-looking rushed upon their victorious pursuers, cheered man, who is pointed out as "the poor ser

on by a tall and handsome officer, in a fantas- geant whose lady-wife followed him through tic uniform, in whom, even amidst the smoke his campaigns, and died on the field of and carnage, I recognized E Hepburn. I battle."

2

2

From The Saturday Review, 28 Nov.
THE CAUSES OF THE CRISIS.

They did understand them, and one of the principles on which they relied was that they might be careless of risk, because Government would step in to save them from its ultimate consequences.

NOTWITHSTANDING the recently reported failure of another large provincial Bank, the worst of the crisis appears to be over, and enough has transpired to indicate the real Now, if these are the real facts, how encauses of the disaster. Under present cir- tirely do they dispose of the arguments eumstances, the morbid anatomy of trade, as which are urged in favor of relaxing the exhibited in the failures that have occured, stringency of our monetary laws. We are not may be a serviceable, though not a pleasing now referring to those declaimers against study. It is very material to ascertain the Bank Act who grow fervent about arbiwhether the troubles we have been passing trary interference with the issue of paper, through are to be attributed to unavoidable and who believe, in all simplicity, that Peel's accident, or to the wilful errors of speculative Act is a subtle contrivance for maintaining a houses, acting in full knowledge of the mis- curiously artificial standard of currency. chief they might do, and in the confidence These gentlemen can never be got to see that if matters came to the worst, Provi- that the Act, so far from interfering with the 2 dence, in the shape of Lord Palmerston, natural course of trade, does exactly the would step in and save them from ruin. If reverse, by prohibiting the arbitrary creation the latter is the real state of the case, there of conventional money, which would interis an end of the argument that commercial fere, and is always intended to interfere, crises are to be regarded as the work of with the natural flow of bullion and the destiny, to be met by exceptional relief, in-market rate of interest. Against fanatics of stead of being averted beforehand by the warnings of an inflexible law. The apologists of Lord Palmerston of course attribute all that has occurred to the mischance of the American panic; but it is daily becoming more evident that the direct influence of this disturbance, serious as it must needs have been, would not of itself have prostrated our commerce or led to any interference with our monetary laws. The principal houses which have really a right to attribute their suspension to the failure of American debtors, are already re-establishing themselves on a creditable footing. All they required was time; and they have been able to offer an early payment of all their liabilities with interest in the meantime. Failures such as these would never have produced the panic which has lately prevailed in this country. But there is another and very dif-interests of traders all over the world, if let ferent type of commercial disaster to be found in the majority of the suspensions which have been reported. We have more narratives of the manufacture of fictitious bills, and we have accumulating evidence of the extent to which the system has been fostered by the speculative policy of banks and money-dealers. It is not to ignorant or unlucky traders that the panic is to be attributed, but to those whose special business it is to understand and to act upon the principles by which the money-market is governed.

this stamp silence is the only weapon. But there is another class of theorists to who the facts we have noticed ought to bring conviction. They are men who attack the Bank Charter Act not from ignorance, but from want of faith. They know that the law of which they complain is simply an enactment that the trade in money shall be left to itself as completely as it would be if Bank-notes had never been invented. They admit that it combines the convenience and economy of paper with a flow of coin as free from artificial regulatiou or disturbance as the supply of the necessaries of life now fortunately is. But they say that the self-acting rule of Free Trade, which is best in every other case, is not the best law for the trade in money. They recognize the broad truth that the complicated action of the separate

alone, will carry every thing where it is wanted, in the right quantity and at the right time. They will trust this principle to furnish the millions of a city like London with their daily food and their daily luxuries—as it does, without stint or waste, and with a success which the ablest commissariat staff could not attain to in supplying an army of as many thousands. But no sooner do they begin to talk of gold than they refuse to put faith in the principle which, in every other discussion they accept as a safe and certain

guide. And yet the doctrine rests on a wants of every applicant. But that is a risk foundation which must be universal. It can- which the speculator does not dread, for he not be questioned in any one of its applica- is quite satisfied that in such a strait legal tions without rejecting the assumption on restrictions will be set at nought, and notes which the whole science of political economy will be forthcoming to stave off the ruin is based-viz., that in the main, men will which he has deliberately risked. It is in pursue their individual interests, and will vain to expect that a more wholesome sys have intelligence enough to see in what they tem will ever be introduced while men are consist. If merchants failed to show this tempted to carry on business, in defiance of amount of intelligence and prudence in the every maxim of prudence, by the assurance general management of their business, free it matters not whether express or implied trade would be a disastrous failure, and we that the law shall always be suspended in should constantly hear appeals to Govern- time to avert their ultimate crash. ment for relief against periodic famines. If the same measure of prudence were displayed by those who conduct the trade in money, panics would seldom occur, and never in the aggravated form which they now assume.

If it is said that it is impossible to prevent over-trading, and that the mischief is done without any deep calculation as to the course which the Bank or the Government may take, the facts of the present crisis furnish There is no way of teaching wisdom but the answer. The offenders are not only or by letting men feel the consequences of chiefly a multitude of small traders, doing folly. It needs no extraordinary sagacity to all the business they can grasp, and who distinguish prudence from imprudence in might perhaps be fairly assumed to have money dealings. The merchant who scatters acted without much reference to the Act or accommodation paper about the market, its suspension. Men of this stamp can not of knows very well that he is playing at a dan- themselves bring about a crisis. It requires gerous game. The money-dealers who make the assistance of indulgent bankers and great advances on questionable securities up to the discount houses to make trade thoroughly edge of their means, rather than sacrifice a rotten. If the dealers in money were to act portion of profit for the security of an ade- with uniform prudence, as they would be quate reserve, are aware of the risks they compelled to do if they had no Government run. Banks, whose capital is locked up in interposition to look to in the last resort, an unavailable form, must be conscious that over-speculation could never be carried to a the first breath of suspicion may bring them very formidable extent. The fault must to ruin. Yet all. these practices go on as a always lie in great measure at the doors of matter of course until a rise in the demand the particular class of traders who have been for accommodation, or a delay in the arrival the especial instruments in bringing about of remittances from abroad, overthrows one the present crisis. They are not men on establishment after another, and discloses an whom a rigid enforcement of the law would amount of unsound trading that leaves every be lost. They would see at once the neces man in doubt of the solvency of his neigh- sity of adopting a more cautious style of bor. Now, what is at the root of all this business, when they had no longer the assurreckless folly? Why do so many merchants, ance of indefinite aid from the Bank of Engand money-dealers, and banks, carry on land. Their prudence would react upon trade on a footing that involves such danger their customers, and though it would be idle of eventual failure? The reason is obvious. to suppose that we can escape altogether The merchant, of course, relies upon his from periods of pressure, the chief engine banker or his discount house to help him for the encouragement of over-speculation through any difficulty. The money-dealer thinks he may as well run matters fine, and so make the larger profits; for if a difficulty comes, what is the Bank of England for, if not to give assistance when it is required? He foresees, perhaps, that at the very time when he is likely to be pinched, the Bank itself may not have the means to supply the

and the production of commercial panie would be converted into a sound element of the mercantile body. On the other hand, if any sanction is given to the practice of sus pending the Bank Act on every difficulty, the wildest of the banking and discount establishments will be justified and encouraged in a course of business which renders a crisis