Note 59 — Chapter I

I note Costello’s assertion that General Paget offered his purse to any Rifleman who would bring down the French General, only to point out its improbability, not to say its impossibility. No one who knew the gallant Sir Edward Paget will believe that he bribed a soldier to slay a chivalrous and brave enemy; of whom Napier writes, ‘his fine martial figure, his voice, his gestures, and, above all, his great valour, had excited the admiration of the British, and a general feeling of sorrow was predominant when the gallant soldier fell.’ It is quite possible that, as Costello says, General Paget flung his purse (or some of its contents) to Tom Plunket, in admiration of two such unerring shots in the midst of a hot fight. But this is a very different matter from the previous offer of it. It is to be observed that Costello was not at Cacabelos, but was then a recruit at the Depôt; and no doubt the story did not lose, in the barrack-room or at the camp-fire, where he probably had heard it.