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The history of that portion of my father’s life is a long, and to me, interesting one. Suffice it to say, that from all the officials with whom he had to deal, both he and his men met with the harshest and most unjust treatment. Many of his crew succumbed under the hardships to which they were exposed in their dreary and noisome prison-houses. The bright exception to these hard-hearted functionaries was Marshal Kléber, one of Napoleon’s most distinguished generals, a man of high courage, proverbial generosity, and great personal beauty. He was Governor of Cairo at the time, and showed my father especial favour, allowing him out of prison, “on parole,” and courting his society on every occasion. He also presented him with a sword, which I grieve to say did not become an heirloom in the family as my father made it an offering to the Prince Regent.

There were many among those who surrounded the Governor, to whom my father was an object of dislike and jealousy, and when General Kléber was assassinated by a fanatic, my father was accused of being an accomplice of the assassin, and condemned to death. His only companion and comforter in those terrible hours being his favourite pointer, “Malta,” who kept him warm by lying on his chest at night, and scaring away the rats and scorpions which infested the cell. While awaiting the completion of his sentence, the prisoner wrote a most pathetic and eloquent farewell to his wife in England, then expecting her confinement. I subjoin the letter, in order that my readers may judge if the epithets I have bestowed on it be ill-chosen. I have read it over and over again, at many periods of my life, and every time