"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 cruelty— it 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 hist 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."†

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.

quisite to bring the people en masse to his standard. Alas! no promise could have been more deceptive-the mob who flocked to join him were numerous enough-but, with two or three exceptions, not a man of property or respectability, Protestant or Catholic, took any part in the movement.

The leaders whom the Connaught rebels found among themselves were, with scarcely an exception, men of debauched habits, who would, by infamous example, have ruined any cause they had espoused. "Bellew, their earliest officer, was a drunken brute, to whom nobody paid obedience, even before he was turned out of office by the commandant. Little better for sobriety was O'Dowd, a man of some estate in the county, and almost the only gentleman that took arms with the rebels, for which he paid the forfeit of his life at Ballinamuck. Richard Bourke, of Ballina, had some military knowledge, was a good drill-sergeant, firm in combat, and popular; so that he might have done the harm he wished, if the habitual stupefaction of drink had not been an overmatch for his malice. O'Donnell knew nothing of arms, nor was he likely to learn the profession quickly, his petulance making him unfit for discipline. Yet the vulgar, who can discern in others what they have not in themselves, followed this young man more readily than any other who pretended to lead them, because they saw he had more sense, more command of himself, and more moderation in the exercise of authority. Even the loyalists at Killalla acknowledged great obligations to him for the industry with which they saw him exert himself to prevent pillage, patrolling the streets on horseback for several nights together, and withholding, both by threats and persuasion, those whom he found bent upon mischief. This testimony, whatever his failings might be, is extremely honourable to the memory of O'Donnell, who was killed in battle in the retaking of Killalla."*

Fallen and despicable as Bellew was, there is a romance attendant on his earlier life, that points the moral of the mutability of human fortune well. That very man, degraded even in the eyes of savages, and repudiated disdainfully by invaders, who courted an alliance with any removed a shade beyond the brutal mob-that fallen man had once his foot upon the path of fortune-and the name of Bellew bade fair, in early manhood, to rival that of any successful soldier who figured in those stirring times.

He sub

"This unfortunate individual † was brother to Doctor Bellew, Roman Catholic bishop of Killalla, and when that gentleman was at Rome, studying divinity, their father sent out his second son Matthew, to have him educated for the priesthood under his brother. mitted for some years, though reluctantly, to the course of study necessary to qualify him for the pastoral office; but being of a lively volatile disposition, and having formed an acquaintance at Rome with some Austrian officers, who encouraged him to join them, he entered

* Gordon.

†This memoir, as given by Musgrave, is substantially correct.

into the imperial service, and was soon after promoted to the rank of lieutenant; but not finding sufficient employment for the activity of his mind and body at that time in Germany, he entered into the Russian service, where he found sufficient occupation for the energies of both, in the bloody war which broke out between the Russians and Turks. Here, his courage and conduct were so conspicuous, that he was soon advanced to the rank of major in a regiment of infantry. But his rapid career in military fame, of which he ever seemed immoderately fond, was suddenly checked by an unforeseen accident. At the siege of Ismail the enemy sprang a mine, which blew up part of the works, and buried in the ruins our unfortunate hero and a great many Russian soldiers. Happy had he been to have been numbered with the dead, and to have finished his life as he had begun it-like a soldier! But Providence reserved him for a more ignominious fate, and exemplified in him the uncertainty of human affairs. In his early days he fought for glory in a foreign land, and fought with courage the battles of alien princes. In his maturer years, he incurred disgrace and infamy at home, and took up arms against his lawful sovereign and his native country. When extricated from the ruins, he had but few symptoms of life; he languished a long time under his wounds, and his intellects were so much impaired, that he was found unfit for service. It was thought advisable then to give him a long leave of absence, and to let him return to his friends, in hopes that tranquillity and his native air would restore him.

"Fresh misfortunes awaited him on his return to Ireland. As he had no fortune, he lived with his friends and his brother, on whom he had great dependence; but when the gloss of novelty wore away, they grew tired of him, and manifested by their conduct that they considered him a troublesome and unwelcome guest. This drove him into low company, and a habit which he had acquired of drinking spirits increased his derangement, and made him disagreeable and offensive. His brother having quarrelled with him, refused to admit him into his house, and used to billet him among his priests, month about-a situation very disagreeable to him, as he disliked the principles, and was disgusted with the ignorance and vulgarity of his hosts, which, in his gayer hours, were a subject of his merriment and ridicule.

"By the death of an uncle he became entitled to six hundred pounds, which he frequently solicited, to carry him back to Russia; but, notwithstanding the most pressing solicitations, he could not obtain it from his brother, who transacted the affairs of the deceased. He was frequently invited to the tables of the genteel and respectable families at Bellina; but from the want of clothes and cleanliness, and the filth and squalidness of his person, he soon became unfit for society. Being in this state of misery and wretchedness on the arrival of the French, he had not firmness and fortitude enough to resist the temptations which they offered him to enter into their service. His first offer, however, was to his king and country; and just as the enemy were about to enter Ballina, he earnestly entreated two gentlemen whom he knew, to supply him with arms and a horse, declaring that