He saw the consequences that might arise from the slightest breaking out of quarrel.

It was not possible for him to send his men, unarmed as they still were, to their homes, lest they should be destroyed by the rebels; yet the officers of the other corps wished to have them sent out of the town, and to this effect joined in a memorial to government.

Some of these officers disliked my father, from differences of electioneering interests; others, from his not having kept up an acquaintance with them; and others, not knowing him in the least, were misled by party reports and misrepresentations.
'These petty dissensions were, however, at one moment suspended and forgotten in a general sense of danger.

An express arrived late one night with the news that the French, who were rapidly advancing, were within a few miles of the town of Longford.

A panic seized the people.