A couple of soldiers, strongly armed, sat on the outer bench of the cart, and their grim faces peered in with their lanterns every now and then through the canvas curtains, that they might count the number of their prisoners.

The brutes were half-drunk, and were singing love and war songs, such as 'O Gretchen mein Taubchen, mein Herzenstrompet, Mein Kanon, mein Heerpauk und meine Musket,' 'Prinz Eugen der edle Ritter.' and the like; their wild whoops and jodels making doleful discord with the groans of us captives within the waggons.

Many a time afterwards have I heard these ditties sung on the march, or in the barrack-room, or round the fires as we lay out at night.
I was not near so unhappy, in spite of all, as I had been on my first enlisting in Ireland.

At least, thought I, if I am degraded to be a private soldier there will be no one of my acquaintance who will witness my shame; and that is the point which I have always cared for most.
There will be no one to say, 'There is young Redmond Barry, the descendant or the Barrys, the fashionable young blood of Dublin, pipeclaying his belt and carrying his brown Bess.' Indeed, but for that opinion of the world, with which it is necessary that every man of spirit should keep upon equal terms, I, for my part, would have always been contented with the humblest portion.

Now here, to all intents and purposes, one was as far removed from the world as in the wilds of Siberia, or in Robinson Crusoe's Island.