or city guard, which, having heard his complaint, fixed their
bayonets and surrounded the door, to the number of twelve or fourteen.
The young gentlemen, flushed with their success, and considering the
soldiers as so many London watchmen whom they had often put to flight,
drew their swords, and sallied out, with Peregrine at their head.
Whether the guard respected them as foreigners, or inexperienced youths
intoxicated with liquor, they opened to right and left, and gave them
room to pass without opposition. This complaisance, which was the effect
of compassion, being misinterpreted by the English leader, he, out of
mere wantonness, attempted to trip up the heels of the soldier that
stood next him, but failed in the execution, and received a blow on his
breast with the butt-end of a fusil, that made him stagger several paces
backward. Incensed at this audacious application, the whole company
charged the detachment sword in hand and, after an obstinate engagement,
in which divers wounds were given and received, every soul of them was
taken, and conveyed to the main-guard. The commanding officer being made
acquainted with the circumstances of the quarrel, in consideration
of their youth and national ferocity, for which the French make large
allowances, set them all at liberty, after having gently rebuked them
for the irregularity and insolence of their conduct; so that all our
hero acquired by his gallantry and courage, was a number of scandalous
marks upon his visage that confined him a whole week to his chamber.
It was impossible to conceal this disaster from Mr. Jolter, who, having
obtained intelligence of the particulars, did not fail to remonstrate
against the rashness of the adventure, which, he observed, must have
been fatal to them, had their enemies been other than Frenchmen, who,
of all people under the sun, most rigorously observe the laws of
hospitality.

As the governor's acquaintance lay chiefly among Irish and English
priests, and a set of low people who live by making themselves necessary
to strangers, either in teaching the French language, or executing small
commissions with which they are intrusted, he was not the most proper
person in the world for regulating the taste of a young gentleman who
travelled for improvement, in expectation of making a figure one day
in his own country. Being conscious of his own incapacity, he contented
himself with the office of a steward, and kept a faithful account of all