officers in the British service: these were Captain Hutchinson and General
Sir Robert Wilson. To the latter was committed the most difficult task,
that of conveying out of France the condemned prisoner; but for this
achievement few men were better fitted than Sir Robert Wilson, a man
of fertile imagination, ready courage, great assurance, and singular
power of command over others; who spoke French well, and was intimately
acquainted with the military habits of different nations.

Sir Robert Wilson's career was a singular one: he had commenced life
an ardent enemy of Bonaparte, and it was upon his evidence, collected
in Egypt and published to the world, that the great general was for
a long time believed to have poisoned his wounded soldiers at Jaffa.
Afterwards he was attached to the Allied Sovereigns in their great campaign;
but upon his arrival in Paris, his views of public affairs became suddenly
changed; he threw off the yoke of preconceived opinions, became an ardent
liberal, and so continued to the last hours of his life. The cause
of this sudden change of opinion has never been thoroughly known, but
certain it is that on every occasion he supported liberal opinions with
a firmness and courage that astonished those who had known him in his
earlier days.

Sir Robert undertook, in the midst of great dangers and difficulties,
to convey Lavalette out of France; having dressed him in the uniform
of an English officer, and obtained a passport under a feigned name,
he took him in a cabriolet past the barriers as far as Compiegne, where
a carriage was waiting for them. They passed through sundry examinations
at the fortified towns, but fortunately escaped; the great difficulty
being that, owing to Lavalette's having been the director of the posts,
his countenance was familiar to almost all the postmasters who supplied
relays of horses. At Cambray three hours were lost, from the gates