We are reminded once more of the relation of the old Irish chiefs to the supreme king at Tara, when we hear how the descendants of those chiefs, who prided themselves on their lineage, attached themselves to a king who had been driven from England, and who, like them, could boast of descent from old Irish princes. They had organised themselves for war after the fashion of the seventeenth century. The heads of the septs appeared as colonels; their relations, according to the claims of their descent, as higher or lower officers: the common people attached themselves to them from a feeling of clanship. Strict military subordination could not be enforced under such circumstances any more than it had been possible to enforce it among the Russians as long as the Me'stnitckestvo still prevailed among them. The relationship of the officers to each other, and even to their soldiers, forbade the establishment of any strict discipline. The captain could not seriously reprove the sergeant who was his cousin, nor the latter the soldier whom he considered to be about his equal, and who did not submit to any harsh usage. The natives were all equally unacquainted with military service, yet they would only be commanded by each other, for no foreigner was supposed to love the country. The officers who had come over from France were at* first in a difficult position in dealing with this rude and distrustful people. The Irish treated their king with confidential familiarity.