Page:Reminisences of Captain Gronow.djvu/159

Rh sympathy for the fate of Marshal Ney——men of liberal principles and undoubted honour, and both of them 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; and 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