iewed the Connaughters with dislike, even stigmatised them as
confirmed marauders, and recommended none of their officers for
promotion, although many greatly distinguished themselves, and
some,--the brave Mackie, at Ciudad Rodrigo, for instance--successfully
led forlorn-hopes. Finally, passing over the old sore of non-decoration
for Peninsular services, since that, common to many regiments, is at
last about to be healed,--Mr Robinson, the biographer of Sir Thomas
Picton, has dared, in order to vindicate the harsh and partial conduct
of his hero, to cast dust upon the facings of the brave boys of
Connaught. It need hardly be said that they have found defenders. Of
these, the most recent is Lieutenant Grattan, formerly an officer of the
Eighty-eighth, and who, after making a vigorous stand, in the pages of a
military periodical, against the calumniators of his old corps, has
brought up his reserves and come to its support in a book of his own.
His volumes, however, are not devoted to mere controversy. He has
understood that he should best state the case, establish the merits, and
confound the enemies of his regiment, by a faithful narrative of his and
its adventures, triumphs, and sufferings. Thus, whilst he has seized the
opportunity to deal out some hard knocks to those who have blamed the
conduct (none have ever impugned the courage) of the Connaught Rangers,
he has produced an entertaining book, thoroughly Irish in character,
where the ludicrous and the horrible, the rollicking and the
slaughtering, mingle and alternate. Even when most indignant, good
humour and a love of fun peep through his pages. His prologue or
preamble, entitled "An Answer to some attacks in Robinson's Life of
Picton," although redolent of "slugs in a sawpit," is full of the
national humour. "Frequently," Mr Robinson has asserted, "just before
going into battle, it would be found, upon inspection, that one-half of
the Eighty-eighth regiment were without ammunition, having acquired a
pernicious habit of exchanging the cartridge for _aguardiente_, and
substituting in their places pieces of wood, cut and coloured to
resemble them." Such things have been heard of, even in very
well-regulated regiments, as the exchange of powder and ball for brandy
and other creature comforts; but it is very unlikely that the practice
should have prevailed to any thing like the extent here set down, in a
British army in active service and under Wellington's command, an