An Adventure of Hardress Fitzgerald, a Royalist Captain explained

What happens

Themes in this chapter

• Guilt and Retribution

  Fitzgerald reflects on 'deeds of necessary but dire severity' that troubled him, hinting at guilt and the potential for retribution.

• Love and Sacrifice

  Fitzgerald's loyalty to King James and willingness to risk his life for the cause exemplify sacrifice.

• Corruption and Injustice

  The political turmoil and the presence of 'dissolute and desperate adventurers' in Dublin reflect corruption and injustice in the aftermath of war.

Characters to notice

• Hardress Fitzgerald

  The narrator and protagonist, a Royalist captain serving King James, who undertakes a perilous mission for General Sarsfield.

• Mr. Purcell

  The late Francis Purcell, whose legacy includes this narrative.

• Colonel O'Mara

  Mentioned as a figure who might have been involved in the events, though not directly appearing.

Key passages

• “I have always preferred, where I could do so with any approach to accuracy, to give such relations as the one which I am about to submit to you, in the first person, and in the words of the original narrator, believing that such a form of recitation not only gives freshness to the tale, but in this particular instance, by bringing before me and steadily fixing in my mind's eye the veteran royalist who himself related the occurrence which I am about to record, furnishes an additional stimulant to my memory, and a proportionate check upon my imagination.”

  The narrator prefers to tell the story in the original speaker's own words to keep it vivid and accurate, and to help him remember clearly without embellishing.

  Purcell explains his method of preserving the tale.

• “I would not suffer myself to believe that the cause of my royal master was so desperate as it really was; and while I lay in my lodgings, which consisted of the garret of a small dark house, standing in the lane which runs close by Audoen's Arch, I busied myself with continual projects for the raising of the country, and the re-collecting of the fragments of the defeated army—plans, you will allow, sufficiently magnificent for a poor devil who dared scarce show his face abroad in the daylight.”

  Fitzgerald refused to accept that King James's cause was lost, and from his hiding place in a Dublin garret, he made grand plans to rally the country and reassemble the scattered army.

  Fitzgerald's optimism and denial after the defeat.

• “I want you to convey to the hands of General Boisleau, now in the city of Limerick, a small written packet; there is some danger, mark me, of your falling in with some outpost or straggling party of the prince's army. If you are taken unawares by any of the enemy you must dispose of the packet inside your person, rather than let it fall into their hands—that is, you must eat it.”

  General Sarsfield orders Fitzgerald to deliver a secret packet to General Boisleau in Limerick, warning him to eat it if captured to prevent it from falling into enemy hands.

  Sarsfield's dangerous mission for Fitzgerald.