Officers and soldiers joined in swearing that they would never return to a country where they could find neither bread, wine, nor discipline, and where the people lived on roots, whisky, and lying.' Maria ends this exciting chapter of the Memoirs with these moral reflections: 'At all times it is disadvantageous to those who have the reputation of being men of superior abilities, to seclude themselves from the world.

It raises a belief that they despise those with whom they do not associate; and this supposed contempt creates real aversion.

The being accused of pride or singularity may not, perhaps, in the estimation of some lofty spirits and independent characters, appear too great a price to pay for liberty and leisure; they will care little if they be misunderstood or misrepresented by the vulgar; they will trust to truth and time to do them justice.

This may be all well in ordinary life, and in peaceable days; but in civil commotions the best and the wisest, if he have not made himself publicly known, so as to connect himself with the interests and feelings of his neighbours, will find none to answer for his character if it be attacked, or to warn him of the secret machinations of his enemies; none who on any sudden emergency will risk their own safety in his defence: he may fall and be trampled upon by numbers, simply because it is nobody's business or pleasure to rally to his aid.

Time and reason right his character, and may bring all who have injured, or all who have mistaken him, to repentance and shame, but in the interval he must suffer--he may perish.'.