FRANCE AND IRELAND.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR:1 SIR,—Yesterday, from a terrace planted among the red porphyry rocks of the Esterel mountains, overlooking a broad expanse of blue Mediterranean, I observed a huge ironclad, with (I think) three turrets, steaming eastwards. It chanced that a kind of ancient French mariner was at hand. Never before have I beheld such a hoolced nose belonging to a Frenchman,—it would have done honour to a Napier. The mariner—who must, I think, have been a retired sea-captain—was also distinguished from the majority of his countrymen by speaking excellent English. He in- formed me that the sea-monster we were contemplating was Le Hoche,' armed with cannon of the heaviest calibre used in the French Navy, and that she was on her way to Greece. (It is a curious coincidence that the Russian Fleet is now in Greek waters.) "The vessel," continued my informant, "is called after General Hoche, who commanded the French expeditionary corps intended to effect a landing in Bantry Bay at the end of the last century. I know Bantry Bay myself ; I was there thirty years ago, when the Irish were in fermentation against England. An Irishman at Bantry, when he found I was a Frenchman, said to me, Since General Hoche consecrated this Bay by the presence of a French force, I hold that the English have lost the right to take even a fish out of its waters." This incident seems to me sufficiently curious to communicate to the Spectator.—I
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