In my temporary position on General Serasin’s staff, I came to hear much of this fellow’s conduct. The most grievous stories were told me every day of his rapacity and cruelty; but, harassed and overworked as the general was with duties that would have been overmuch for three or four men, I forebore to trouble him with recitals which could only fret and distress him without affording the slightest chance of relief to others. Perhaps this impunity had rendered him more daring, or, perhaps, the immense number of armed Irish in comparison with the small force of disciplined soldiers, emboldened the fellow; but certainly he grew day by day more presumptuous and insolent, and at last so far forgot himself as to countermand one of General Serasin’s orders, by which a guard was stationed at the Protestant church to prevent its being molested or injured by the populace.
General Humbert had already refused the Roman Catholic priest his permission to celebrate mass in that building, but Dowall had determined otherwise, and that, too, by a written order, under his own hand. The French sergeant who commanded the guard of course paid little attention to this warrant; and when Father Hennisy wanted to carry the matter with a high hand, he coolly tore up the paper, and threw the fragments at him.
Dowall was soon informed of the slight offered to his mandate. He was at supper at the time, entertaining a party of his friends, who all heard the priest’s story, and, of course, loudly sympathised with his sorrows, and invoked the powerful leader’s aid and protection. Affecting to believe that the sergeant had merely acted in ignorance, and from not being able to read English, Dowall despatched a fellow whom he called his aide-de-camp, a schoolmaster named Lowrie, and who spoke a little bad French, to interpret his command, and to desire the sergeant to withdraw his men, and give up the guard to a party of ‘the squad.’
Great was the surprise of the supper-party, when, after the lapse of half an hour, a country fellow came in to say that he had seen Lowrie led off to prison between two French soldiers. By this time Dowall had drunk himself into a state of utter recklessness, while, encouraged by his friends’ praises, and the arguments of his own passions, he fancied that he might dispute ascendency with General Humbert himself. He at once ordered out his horse, and gave a command to assemble the ‘squad.’ As they were all billeted in his immediate vicinity, this was speedily effected, and their numbers swelled by a vast mass of idle and curious, who were eager to see how the matter would end; the whole street was crowded, and when Dowall mounted, his followers amounted to above a thousand people.