“Are they going back again?” inquired one who wanted further information.
“Some of them are, I believe,” answered the first speaker. “Though not by the steamer,” he added. “The poor devils can’t afford that.”
“Then why are they here?”
“They have some leaders who are going. One of them, a man named Maynard, who made some figure in the late Mexican war.”
“Oh, Captain Maynard! But he’s not one of them! He isn’t a foreigner.”
“No. But the men he commanded in Mexico were, most of them! That’s why they have chosen him for their leader.”
“Captain Maynard must be a fool,” interposed a third speaker. “The rising reported in Europe has no chance of success. He’ll only get his neck into a halter. Are there any Americans taking part in the movement?”
He of supposed special information guessed not.
He guessed correctly, though it was a truth not over creditable to his country—which, by his speech, could be no other than the “States.”
At that crisis, when filibustering might have been of some service to the cause of European freedom, the only American who volunteered for it was Maynard; and he was an American-Irishman! Still, to this great country—to a residence among its people, and a study of its free institutions—was he indebted for the inspiration that had made him what he was—a lover of Liberty.