roject that the Minister of War at once embraced. His
Excellency saw Maitland on it, and talked over the whole plan. Maitland
was himself to direct all its operations. Caffarelli would correspond
with him from Naples, and, in case of any complication or difficulty,
shroud the Minister from attack. Ample funds would be provided. The men
could be engaged as laborers upon some great public work, and forwarded
in small drafts to a convenient port. Arms could be easily procured
from Liege. Officers could be readily obtained, either Irish or Poles or
Hungarians, who could speak English. In a word, all the details had been
well discussed and considered; and Maitland, on arriving in London, had
again talked over the project with wise and crafty heads, whose prudent
counsels showed him how little fit he was, personally, to negotiate
directly with the Irish peasant, and how imperative above all things it
was to depute this part of his task to some clever native, capable of
employing the subordinates he needed. "Hide yourself," said they, "in
some out-of-the-way spot in Wales or Scotland; even the far North
of Ireland will do; remain anywhere near enough to have frequent
communication with your agent, but neither be seen nor known in the plot
yourself. Your English talk and your English accent would destroy more
confidence than your English gold would buy."

Such an agent was soon found,--a man admirably adapted in many respects
for the station. He had been an adventurer all his life; served with the
French in Austria, and the Austrians in the Banat; held an independent
command of Turks during the Crimean War; besides, episodically, having
"done a little," as he called it, on the Indian frontier with the
Yankees; and served on the staff of Rosas, at La Plata; all his great
and varied experiences tending to one solitary conviction, that no real
success was ever to be attained in anything except by means of Irishmen;
nor could order, peace, and loyalty be ever established anywhere without
their assistance. If he was one of the bravest men living, he was one
of the most pushing and impertinent. He would have maintained a point of
law against the Lord Chancellor, and contested tactics with a Marshal of
France. He thought himself the ornament of any society he entered, and
his vanity, in matters of intellect, was only surpassed by his personal
conceit. And now one word as to his appearance. With the aid of cleverly
constructed boots he