Note 48 — IRISH REBELLION.

No man ever came to a violent death more unwarily! Colonel Walpole was a peculiarly handsome man, an aide-de-camp to Lord Camden. With somewhat of the air of a petit-maître, he fluttered much about the drawing-room of the Castle:—but, as he had not seen actual service, he felt a sort of military inferiority to veterans, who had spent the early part of their lives in blowing other people’s brains out; and he earnestly begged to be entrusted with some command that might give him an opportunity of fighting for a few weeks in the County Wexford, and of writing some elegant despatches to his excellency the lord lieutenant. The lord lieutenant most kindly indulged him with a body of troops, and sent him to fight in the County Wexford, as he requested: but on passing the town of Gorey, not being accustomed to advanced-guards or flankers, he overlooked such trifles altogether! and having got into a defile with some cannon and the Antrim regiment,—in a few minutes the colonel was shot through the head—the cannon changed masters—and most of the Antrim heroes had each a pike, ten or twelve feet long, sticking in his carcase:—“Sic transit gloria mundi!”