Page:A French Volunteer of the War of Independence.djvu/208

184 and worst misfortune which could befall the unfortunate French emigrants, was to find themselves swindled by their own countrymen—men heartless enough to impose upon the credulity of strangers, and sell them a few sand-hills planted with scrub-pine for an Eldorado.

I have never seen a man look more disconcerted than this unlucky agent did, but I should like to have seen the reception that the speculative triumvirate—to whom I had the honour to be known—gave their clumsy emissary when he rendered an account of his visit.

Providence, however, did not permit the enterprise to succeed, and the three speculators came to a bad end. Senator Morris, crippled with debts, died in prison; M. T—— went mad, and Vicomte de Noailles, after having won four or five hundred thousand francs on the Philadelphia Exchange, left for St. Domingo, where he was killed on board an English cruiser. He, at least, died like a brave