Page:Memoirs of a Huguenot Family.djvu/209

 Rh The four Irishmen who had acted as guides to the French were very much alarmed; they feared that if I discovered them I should hand them over to justice; so they prudently determined to be beforehand, and they came voluntarily before me, and made oath that the French had taken them by main force. They furnished us with the information I have given already of the extent of the loss sustained by the French. They told us that the lieutenant, whom we had slain, was a near relation of the Captain, who was so furious at his death, that he swore if he took me he would roast me alive and salt me.

After this I determined to build a kind of fortification at the back of my house, to answer the double purpose of protecting the lower floor from the guns of ships, and defending the mouth of the creek. I bought several six-pounders which had been fished up from a vessel lost on the coast. I had three carriages made for them, and I raised a fortification of turf, whose parapet was eighteen feet in thickness, and so situated as to command the entrance of the creek, and cover the lower story of my house entirely, on the side next the creek.

My Irish neighbors were much chagrined at the unexpected issue of the attack, which they had felt certain was to rid the country of me for ever. They were more and more annoyed as they saw the progress of my preparations for future defence. They tried to alarm me; they said to me that perhaps I was not aware there was an Act of Parliament which forbade any person to erect a fortification, or mount guns without the special permission of Government. I replied to them that I knew all about the Act of Parliament quite as well as they did, but I had no fear of disturbance in