and judge
whether I have not cause for the inextinguishable hate that rankles at
my heart. Every trifling disobedience of orders--every partial neglect
of duty that could be raked up--was tortured into a specific charge;
and, as I have already admitted I had latterly transgressed not a
little in this respect, these were numerous enough. Yet they were but
preparatory to others of greater magnitude. Next succeeded one that
referred to the message I had given, and countermanded, to the sergeant
of my company, when in the impatience of my disappointment I had
desired him to tell the colonel I would see the service d--d rather
than inconvenience myself at that moment for it. This was unsupported
by other evidence, however, and therefore failed in the proof. But the
web was too closely woven around to admit of my escaping.--Will you,
can you believe any thing half so atrocious, as that your father should
have called on this same man not only to prove the violent and
insubordinate language I had used in reference to the commanding
officer in my own rooms, but also to substantiate a charge of
cowardice, grounded on the unwillingness I had expressed to accompany
the expedition, and the extraordinary trepidation I had evinced, while
preparing for the duty, manifested, as it was stated to be, by the
various errors he had rectified in my equipment with his own hand? Yes,
even this pitiful charge was one of the many preferred; but the
severest was that which he had the unblushing effrontery to make the
subject of public investigation, rather than of private redress--the
blow I had struck him in his own apartments. And who was his witness in
this monstrous charge?--your mother, Clara. Yea, I stood as a criminal
in her presence; and yet she came forward to tender an evidence that
was to consign me to a disgraceful sentence. My vile prosecutor had,
moreover, the encouragement, the sanction of his colonel throughout,
and by him he was upheld in every contemptible charge his ingenuity
could devise. Do you not anticipate the result?--I was found guilty,
and dismissed the service.

"How acted my brother officers, when, previously to the trial, I
alluded to the damnable treachery of your father? Did they condemn his
conduct, or sympathise with me in my misfortune?--No; they shrugged
their shoulders, and coldly observed, I ought to have known better than
to trust one against whom they had so often cautioned me; but that as I
had selected hi