In the eighties he would have been shot in the back by some scoundrel who had primed himself with Dutch courage from adulterated whisky.

He raised a Yeomanry Corps at the time of the Whiteboys to guard the country against these lawless bands, and against the dreaded French invasion.  This regiment was called the Dingle Yeomanry, and the tales about it are many.

On one occasion when Captain Hickson was in London, the general from Dublin inspected the corps.  In the absence of the commanding officer, his brother was ordered to parade the battalion, and being a nervous young man, he completely forgot all the words of command, so to the unconcealed amusement of the old martinet from the capital, he shouted:—­

‘Boys, do as you always do.’

It says well for the discipline of the regiment that they did not implicitly obey the order.

His mother, this Mrs. Judith Hickson, was the only one of my grand-parents I ever saw, and very little impression she has left on my memory, except a notion that she had less sense of humour than pertains to most Irishwomen by the blessing of God and their own mother wit.

My father was a Roman Catholic, and my mother a Protestant.  By the terms of the marriage settlement, we were all brought up in her faith, which occasioned a tremendous row at that time, and nowadays would never be tolerated by the priests.

All the same my father was an obstinate man, not disposed to care much for the whole College of Cardinals, and indifferent if he were cursed with bell and book.  Of course he was not a good-tempered man, or he would not have justified his nickname of Red Precipitate, but he spared the rod with me, and failed to keep me in order.  I was the youngest of a pretty large family and the pet into the bargain.

My eldest brother, John, was drowned at St. Malo.  He was unmarried, and his profession was to do nothing as handsomely as he could.

James was in the 13th Light Dragoons, and subsequently in the 11th.  He saw no service, and was an excellent soldier at mess and off duty.  I am not qualified to speak with authority about his fulfilment of the trumpery trivialities which fill up garrison life, but here is one anecdote about him.

Soon after Lord Cardigan took command of the 13th Light Dragoons, a great many of the officers left the corps, and a man wrote to the papers to say that this was chiefly due to the great expense of the mess.

My brother retorted in print that for his part the reason was due to its being ’incompatible with my feelings as a gentleman to remain in the regiment as it is equally impossible to exchange out of a regiment that has the undeserved misfortune to be commanded by his lordship.’

Edward lived at Dingle, and was much liked by the people there.  He was an active magistrate and a conscientious man.  He married and left two sons, one in the Horse Artillery and the other a colonel in the Engineers.  They have all joined the great majority.