I.

Morgan, the gay and handsome son of a low Irish farmer, tired of home, went to take the chances of the world, and seek his fortune. By what means he traversed England, or made his way to France, is not told. But he at length crossed France, and, probably without much knowledge or much care whether he was moving to the north or the south pole, found himself in the Prussian territory. This was in the day of Frederick William I. (1713-1740), famous for his tall regiment of guards. He had but one ambition, that of inspecting twice a day a regiment of a thousand grenadiers, not one of whom was less than six feet and a half high. Morgan was an Irish giant, and was instantly seized by the Prussian recruiting sergeants, who forced him to “volunteer” into the tall battalion. This turn of fate was totally out of the Irishman’s calculation; and the prospect of carrying a musket till his dying day on the Potsdam parade[2], after having made up his mind to live by his wits and rove the world, more than once tempted him to think of leaving his musket and honour behind him, and fairly trying his chance for escape. But the attempt was always found impracticable; the frontier was too closely watched, and Morgan still marched up and down the Potsdam parade with a disconsolate heart, when one evening a Turkish recruit was brought in; for the king looked to nothing but the thews and sinews of a man, and the Turk was full seven feet high.

“How much did his majesty give for catching that heathen?” said Morgan to his corporal. “Four hundred dollars[3],” was the answer. Morgan burst out into an exclamation of astonishment at this waste of royal treasure upon a Turk. “Why, they cannot be got for less,” replied the corporal. “What a pity my five brothers cannot hear of it!” said Morgan, “I am a dwarf to any one of them, and the sound of half the money would bring them all over immediately.” As the discovery of a tall recruit was the well-known road to favoritism, five were worth at least a pair of colours to the corporal[4]. The conversation was immediately carried to the sergeant, and from him, through the gradation of officers, to the colonel, who took the first opportunity of mentioning it to the king. The colonel was instantly ordered to question Morgan; but he at once lost all recollection of the subject. “He had no brothers; he had made the regiment his father, and mother, and relations, and there he hoped to live and die.” But he was urged still more strongly, and at length confessed that he had brothers, even above the regimental standard, but that nothing on earth could stir them from their spades.

[1] +Morgan der Preuße.+

[2] +auf dem Paradeplatz zu Potsdam.+

[3] +Thaler.+

[4] five — corporal, +so würden fünf derselben dem Korporal wenigstens eine Fähnrichsstelle eintragen+.

_Section 246._

MORGAN PRUSSIA.