Hitherto his battlefields had been in Europe, but a voice from far away seemed to be calling to him in urgent accents.

Away in the West, English subjects were being harried and killed, driven like helpless sheep to slaughter.

How long was it to continue?
Would the mother country be content that her provinces should be first contracted and then slowly strangled by the chains imposed by the boundless ambition of France?
Never, never, never! The young officer spoke the words aloud, half raising himself from his couch as he did so.
There was a rising man now at the helm of the state; he had not the full powers that many desired to see.

He had to work hand in hand with a colleague of known incapacity.

Yet the voice of the nation was beginning to make itself heard.