"Get A Court
Dress Made, My Good Friend, And A Big Wig, Ruffled Shirt, And Hair-Powder,
And Stick An
Old-fashioned sword by your side, for, depend on it, old
fashions will come into play again; the most arbitrary
And aristocratic
notions will be revived and terrible machinations will be framed against
the liberties of Europe."
Of course at the Cape we only heard one side of the question; and I began
to be almost convinced that it was as necessary for humanity, as for the
repose of Europe, that the giant should be put down; and I was consoled
when it was effected, ostensibly, at least, by the voice of the people.
I had scarcely been three months in England, when the return of Napoleon
from Elba, and the extraordinary dislocation of the Bourbons from the
throne of France, summoned Europe again to arms; the crusade is preached at
Vienna, and behold! his Grace of Wellington appointed the Godfrey of the
holy league. I had reason, about six weeks before the news of this event
reached London, from some conversation I had with an intelligent friend,
who had just returned from a tour on the Continent, to suppose that the
slightest combination against the Bourbons would prove successful, from
their injudicious conduct and from the temper of the people; but I never
could have supposed that the return of the man of Elba would be hailed with
such unparalleled and unanimous acclamation. As I had long ago wished for
an opportunity of visiting the continent of Europe, which had never before
occurred to me, I eagerly embraced the offer made to me by my friend
Major-General Wilson, formerly Lieut.-Governor of Ceylon,[1] to accompany
him on a military tour through the country about to be the theatre of war.
Though I had never before visited the Continent (except with the British
army in the invasion of Holland in 1799, when I began my military career),
yet I was not wholly unprepared for travelling, having united to a
classical, as well as military education, a tolerable knowledge of history,
and a partial acquirement of the principal modern European languages, which
I had begun to learn when very young and which I kept up during my leisure
hours in India, which, like those of Don Quixote, were many.
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