adventures and sufferings in Germany with great
vivacity and ease.

"The chateau itself was ancient and simply
furnished, and the wood adjoining was divided,
in the old style, by long green alleys intersecting
one another. M. de Lafayette spoke a good
deal about America. He said that so great
was the jealousy of the Americans against
foreign troops, that he was obliged to reduce
the number stipulated for, though he afterwards
negotiated for more at home, and made
the aid effectual. M. de Lafayette was now
devoted to agricultural pursuits, and had
entirely withdrawn from political affairs. His
house and family were excellently regulated;
each one had his or her own employment; till
dinner every guest was left quite free to read,
to walk, and explore the country, to write—in
short, to act as he pleased. All re-assembled at
dinner. The garden, which was large, but had
been neglected, occupied a good deal of the
attention of M. de Lafayette, and he was in the
mornings engaged on his farms. Mr. Fox was
very happy at La Grange; everything there
suited his tastes, besides the gratification of
seeing his friend, after a life of danger and
years of captivity, sheltered at length on that
moderate estate with all his family round him."

The day after his return to Paris, Mr. Fox is
invited to dinner at Berthier's, the minister of
war. The entertainment was splendid and
striking. Military trophies decorated the great
staircase; the dining-room was adorned with
busts of Dessaix, Hoche, and two other generals,
deceased. A great many living distinguished
military characters were present; Berthier
himself, agreeable, active, and penetrating, seemed
equally fit for war or the cabinet; Massena,
about forty-five or forty-six years of age, with
piercing small black eyes, strong make,
determined air, and lively motion. Bourgainville,
celebrated circumnavigator of the globe, and
Volney, author of the Ruins of Empires, were
at this dinner. The form of invitation was in
accordance with the republican style, in date,
in designation of the year, and in the title,
"République Française," affixed to it. An
Austrian officer in full regimentals, in the midst
of the French ofiicers at Berthier's, was an
attractive sight, and one very agreeable fruit of
peace.

In a letter to Lord Holland, dated 21st
November, 1802, Mr. Fox says:

"I have seldom spent time pleasanter than
in Paris, yet I never in my life felt such delight
in returning home. 'Hic amor, hæc patria
est;' mind, I mean the hic and the hæc in a
very confined sense. Indeed, I have little or
nothing to tell you of my life in Paris; the
sight of Lafayette and his family, and the
perfect attachment of them all to him, and of him
to them, was very charming. The only new
acquaintances I made worth mentioning were
Livingstone, who, though deaf, is far the most
agreeable American I ever conversed with,
besides being a very well informed and sensible
man; and Berthier, with whom, from shooting
together, I became very intimate. . . . . I do
not reckon Lord Henry Petty, because I have
been speaking of foreigners only, but never did
I see a young man I liked half so much. Whatever
disappointments Lansdowne may have had
in public life, and in a still more sensible kind
in Lord Wycombe (his eldest son), he must be
very unreasonable if he does not consider them
all compensated in Lord Henry."

This Lord Henry was the late Marquis of
Lansdowne.

            OLD STORIES RE-TOLD.
        COLONEL DESPARD'S PLOT.

IN 1779, Count d'Estaing threatened Jamaica
with twenty-five sail and five-and-twenty
thousand men. The French expedition proving a
mere menace and ending in vapour, Governor
Dalling, immediately on the disappearance of
the hostile fleet below the horizon, planned an
expedition against the Spanish colony of St.
Juan, hoping to conquer Lake Nicaragua and
the cities of Granada and Leon, and to cut off
the communication of the Spaniards between
their northern and southern American possessions.
Lord George Germaine, secretary of state
for the American department, approved the plan,
more especially as great discontent against Spain
was then prevailing in Peru. Nelson, a mere
boy of a captain, just posted on board the
Hinchinbrooke (twenty-eight guns), was ordered to
convoy the five hundred men destined for this
dangerous expedition from Port Royal to Cape
Gracios à Dios, in Honduras.

Governor Dalling and his officers were
entirely ignorant of the climate of Nicaragua, its
dangers, and its geography. The fatal
expedition began by starting too late in the season.
All went well at first; the native tribes of the
Mosquito shore came to the camp and promised
boats for the St. Juan river. On reaching
the mouth of the St. Juan, Nelson's services
properly ceased, but finding none of the soldiers
had ever been up the river, or knew any of the
distances, he resolved to take them up himself and
let his sailors help the Indians. Nelson, at this
time, is described as a gaunt, strange-looking
young man, dressed in stiff-laced uniform, and an
old-fashioned waistcoat with deep flaps, his lank
unpowdered hair being tied in a stiff Hessian tail
of extraordinary length. With him and among
the troops was Captain Despard, a handsome
resolute Irish officer, with bold and fine features;
a determined, impetuous, and intrepid man, who,
in spite of his mild expression, was Nelson's right
hand. By day, the sailors and Indians had to
drag the boats, under a fiery sun, over shoals and
glaring sandbanks; by night, to endure the
pestilential miasma and the heavy and poisonous
dews. At last they reached a fort upon an island,
and Nelson and Despard stormed it at the head
of some seamen. Then they arrived at the castle
of St. Juan, sixty-nine miles from the mouth of
the river, and, like the river itself, walled in
by almost impassable woods swarming with