I never had a taste for anything but genteel company, and hate all
descriptions of low life. Hence my account of the society in which I
at present found myself must of necessity be short; and, indeed,
the recollection of it is profoundly disagreeable to me. Pah! the
reminiscences of the horrid black-hole of a place in which we soldiers
were confined; of the wretched creatures with whom I was now forced to
keep company; of the ploughmen, poachers, pickpockets, who had taken
refuge from poverty, or the law (as, in truth, I had done myself), is
enough to make me ashamed even now, and it calls the blush into my old
cheeks to think I was ever forced to keep such company. I should have
fallen into despair, but that, luckily, events occurred to rouse my
spirits, and in some measure to console me for my misfortunes.
The first of these consolations I had was a good quarrel, which took
place on the day after my entrance into the transport-ship, with a huge
red-haired monster of a fellow--a chairman, who had enlisted to fly from
a vixen of a wife, who, boxer as he was, had been more than a match for
him. As soon as this fellow--Toole, I remember, was his name--got away
from the arms of the washerwoman his lady, his natural courage and
ferocity returned, and he became the tyrant of all round about him.
All recruits, especially, were the object of the brute’s insult and
ill-treatment.
I had no money, as I said, and was sitting very disconsolately over a
platter of rancid bacon and mouldy biscuit, which was served to us at
mess, when it came to my turn to be helped to drink, and I was served,
like the rest, with a dirty tin noggin, containing somewhat more than
half a pint of rum-and-water. The beaker was so greasy and filthy that I
could not help turning round to the messman and saying, ‘Fellow, get me
a glass!’ At which all the wretches round about me burst into a roar of
laughter, the very loudest among them being, of course, Mr. Toole.
‘Get the gentleman a towel for his hands, and serve him a basin of
turtle-soup,’ roared the monster, who was sitting, or rather squatting,
on the deck opposite me; and as he spoke he suddenly seized my beaker of
grog and emptied it, in the midst of another burst of applause.
‘If you want to vex him, ax him about his wife the washerwoman, who
BATES him,’ here whispered in my ear another worthy, a retired link-boy,
who, disgusted with his profession, had adopted the military life.
‘Is it a towel of your wife’s washing, Mr. Toole?’ said I. ‘I’m told she
wiped your face often with one.’
‘Ax him why he wouldn’t see her yesterday, when she came to the ship,’
continued the link-boy. And so I put to him some other foolish jokes
about soapsuds, henpecking, and flat-irons, which set the man into a
fury, and succeeded in raising a quarrel between us. We should have
fallen to at once, but a couple of grinning marines, who kept watch at
the door, for fear we should repent of our bargain and have a fancy to
escape, came forward and interposed between us with fixed bayonets;
but the sergeant coming down the ladder, and hearing the dispute,
condescended to say that we might fight it out like men with FISTES if
we chose, and that the fore-deck should be free to us for that purpose.
But the use of fistes, as the Englishman called them, was not then
general in Ireland, and it was agreed that we should have a pair
of cudgels; with one of which weapons I finished the fellow in four
minutes, giving him a thump across his stupid sconce which laid
him lifeless on the deck, and not receiving myself a single hurt of
consequence.
This victory over the cock of the vile dunghill obtained me respect
among the wretches of whom I formed part, and served to set up my
spirits, which otherwise were flagging; and my position was speedily
made more bearable by the arrival on board our ship of an old friend.
This was no other than my second in the fatal duel which had sent me
thus early out into the world, Captain Fagan. There was a young nobleman
who had a company in our regiment (Gale’s foot), and who, preferring the
delights of the Mall and the clubs to the dangers of a rough campaign,
had given Fagan the opportunity of an exchange; which, as the latter had
no fortune but his sword, he was glad to make. The sergeant was
putting us through our exercise on deck (the seamen and officers of the
transport looking grinning on) when a boat came from the shore bringing
our captain to the ship; and though I started and blushed red as he
recognised me--a descendant of the Barrys--in this degrading posture, I
promise you that the sight of Fagan’s face was most welcome to me, for
it assured me that a friend was near me. Before that I was so melancholy
that I would certainly have deserted had I found the means, and had not
the inevitable marines kept a watch to prevent any such escapes.
Fagan gave me a wink of recognition, but offered no public token of
acquaintance; it was not until two days afterwards, and when we had
bidden adieu to old Ireland and were standing out to sea, that he called
me into his cabin, and then, shaking hands with me cordially, gave me
news, which I much wanted, of my family. ‘I had news of you in Dublin,’
he said. ‘’Faith you’ve begun early, like your father’s son; and I think
you could not do better than as you have done. But why did you not write
home to your poor mother? She has sent a half-dozen letters to you at
Dublin.’
I said I had asked for letters at the post-office, but there were none
for Mr. Redmond. I did not like to add that I had been ashamed, after
the first week, to write to my mother.
‘We must write to her by the pilot,’ said he, ‘who will leave us in
two hours; and you can tell her that you are safe, and married to Brown
Bess.’ I sighed when he talked about being married; on which he said
with a laugh, ‘I see you are thinking of a certain young lady at Brady’s
Town.’
‘Is Miss Brady well?’ said I; and indeed, could hardly utter it, for I
certainly WAS thinking about her: for, though I had forgotten her in
the gaieties of Dublin, I have always found adversity makes man very
affectionate.
‘There’s only seven Miss Bradys now,’ answered Fagan, in a solemn voice.
‘Poor Nora’--
‘Good heavens! what of her?’ I thought grief had killed her.
‘She took on so at your going away that she was obliged to console
herself with a husband. She’s now Mrs. John Quin.’
‘Mrs. John Quin! Was there ANOTHER Mr. John Quin?’ asked I, quite
wonder-stricken.
‘No; the very same one, my boy. He recovered from his wound. The ball
you hit him with was not likely to hurt him. It was only made of tow.
Do you think the Bradys would let you kill fifteen hundred a year out of
the family?’ And then Fagan further told me that, in order to get me out
of the way--for the cowardly Englishman could never be brought to marry
from fear of me--the plan of the duel had been arranged. ‘But hit him
you certainly did, Redmond, and with a fine thick plugget of tow; and
the fellow was so frightened, that he was an hour in coming to. We
told your mother the story afterwards, and a pretty scene she made; she
despatched a half-score of letters to Dublin after you, but I suppose
addressed them to you in your real name, by which you never thought to
ask for them.’
‘The coward!’ said I (though, I confess, my mind was considerably
relieved at the thoughts of not having killed him). ‘And did the Bradys
of Castle Brady consent to admit a poltroon like that into one of the
most ancient and honourable families in the world?’
‘He has paid off your uncle’s mortgage,’ said Fagan; ‘he gives Nora
a coach-and-six; he is to sell out, and Lieutenant Ulick Brady of the
Militia is to purchase his company. That coward of a fellow has been the
making of your uncle’s family. ‘Faith! the business was well done.’ And
then, laughing, he told me how Mick and Ulick had never let him out
of their sight, although he was for deserting to England, until the
marriage was completed and the happy couple off on their road to Dublin.
‘Are you in want of cash, my boy?’ continued the good-natured Captain.
‘You may draw upon me, for I got a couple of hundred out of Master Quin
for my share, and while they last you shall never want.’
And so he bade me sit down and write a letter to my mother, which I did
forthwith in very sincere and repentant terms, stating that I had been
guilty of extravagances, that I had not known until that moment under
what a fatal error I had been labouring, and that I had embarked for
Germany as a volunteer. The letter was scarcely finished when the pilot
sang out that he was going on shore; and he departed, taking with him,
from many an anxious fellow besides myself, our adieux to friends in old
Ireland.
Although I was called Captain Barry for many years of my life, and have
been known as such by the first people of Europe, yet I may as well
confess I had no more claim to the title than many a gentleman who
assumes it, and never had a right to an epaulet, or to any military
decoration higher than a corporal’s stripe of worsted. I was made
corporal by Fagan during our voyage to the Elbe, and my rank was
confirmed on TERRA FIRMA. I was promised a halbert, too, and afterwards,
perhaps, an ensigncy, if I distinguished myself; but Fate did not intend
that I should remain long an English soldier: as shall appear presently.
Meanwhile, our passage was very favourable; my adventures were told
by Fagan to his brother officers, who treated me with kindness; and my
victory over the big chairman procured me respect from my comrades of
the fore-deck. Encouraged and strongly exhorted by Fagan, I did my duty
resolutely; but, though affable and good-humoured with the men, I never
at first condescended to associate with such low fellows: and, indeed,
was called generally amongst them ‘my Lord.’ I believe it was the
ex-link-boy, a facetious knave, who gave me the title; and I felt that I
should become such a rank as well as any peer in the kingdom.
It would require a greater philosopher and historian than I am to
explain the causes of the famous Seven Years’ War in which Europe was
engaged; and, indeed, its origin has always appeared to me to be
so complicated, and the books written about it so amazingly hard to
understand, that I have seldom been much wiser at the end of a chapter
than at the beginning, and so shall not trouble my reader with any
personal disquisitions concerning the matter. All I know is, that after
His Majesty’s love of his Hanoverian dominions had rendered him most
unpopular in his English kingdom, with Mr. Pitt at the head of the
anti-German war-party, all of a sudden, Mr. Pitt becoming Minister,
the rest of the empire applauded the war as much as they had hated it
before. The victories of Dettingen and Crefeld were in every-body’s
mouths, and ‘the Protestant hero,’ as we used to call the godless old
Frederick of Prussia, was adored by us as a saint, a very short time
after we had been about to make war against him in alliance with the
Empress-queen. Now, somehow, we were on Frederick’s side: the Empress,
the French, the Swedes, and the Russians, were leagued against us; and
I remember, when the news of the battle of Lissa came even to our remote
quarter of Ireland, we considered it as a triumph for the cause of
Protestantism, and illuminated and bonfired, and had a sermon at church,
and kept the Prussian king’s birthday; on which my uncle would get
drunk: as indeed on any other occasion. Most of the low fellows enlisted
with myself were, of course, Papists (the English army was filled with
such, out of that never-failing country of ours), and these, forsooth,
were fighting the battles of Protestantism with Frederick; who was
belabouring the Protestant Swedes and the Protestant Saxons, as well as
the Russians of the Greek Church, and the Papist troops of the Emperor
and the King of France. It was against these latter that the English
auxiliaries were employed, and we know that, be the quarrel what it may,
an Englishman and a Frenchman are pretty willing to make a fight of it.
We landed at Cuxhaven, and before I had been a month in the Electorate
I was transformed into a tall and proper young soldier, and having a
natural aptitude for military exercise, was soon as accomplished at the
drill as the oldest sergeant in the regiment. It is well, however, to
dream of glorious war in a snug arm-chair at home; ay, or to make it as
an officer, surrounded by gentlemen, gorgeously dressed, and cheered by
chances of promotion. But those chances do not shine on poor fellows in
worsted lace: the rough texture of our red coats made me ashamed when I
saw an officer go by; my soul used to shudder when, on going the rounds,
I would hear their voices as they sat jovially over the mess-table;
my pride revolted at being obliged to plaster my hair with flour and
candle-grease, instead of using the proper pomatum for a gentleman.
Yes, my tastes have always been high and fashionable, and I loathed the
horrid company in which I was fallen. What chances had I of promotion?
None of my relatives had money to buy me a commission, and I became soon
so low-spirited, that I longed for a general action and a ball to finish
me, and vowed that I would take some opportunity to desert.
When I think that I, the descendant of the kings of Ireland, was
threatened with a caning by a young scoundrel who had just joined from
Eton College--when I think that he offered to make me his footman, and
that I did not, on either occasion, murder him! On the first occasion I
burst into tears (I do not care to own it) and had serious thoughts of
committing suicide, so great was my mortification. But my kind friend
Fagan came to my aid in the circumstance, with some very timely
consolation. ‘My poor boy,’ said he, ‘you must not take the matter to
heart so. Caning is only a relative disgrace. Young Ensign Fakenham was
flogged himself at Eton School only a month ago: I would lay a wager
that his scars are not yet healed. You must cheer up, my boy; do your
duty, be a gentleman, and no serious harm can fall on you.’ And I heard
afterwards that my champion had taken Mr. Fakenham very severely to
task for this threat, and said to him that any such proceedings for the
future he should consider as an insult to himself; whereon the young
ensign was, for the moment, civil. As for the sergeants, I told one of
them, that if any man struck me, no matter who he might be, or what
the penalty, I would take his life. And, ‘faith! there was an air of
sincerity in my speech which convinced the whole bevy of them; and as
long as I remained in the English service no rattan was ever laid on the
shoulders of Redmond Barry. Indeed, I was in that savage moody state,
that my mind was quite made up to the point, and I looked to hear my own
dead march played as sure as I was alive. When I was made a corporal,
some of my evils were lessened; I messed with the sergeants by special
favour, and used to treat them to drink, and lose money to the rascals
at play: with which cash my good friend Mr. Fagan punctually supplied
me.
Our regiment, which was quartered about Stade and Luneburg, speedily
got orders to march southwards towards the Rhine, for news came that our
great General, Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick, had been defeated--no, not
defeated, but foiled in his attack upon the French under the Duke of
Broglio, at Bergen, near Frankfort-on-the-Main, and had been obliged to
fall back. As the allies retreated the French rushed forward, and made
a bold push for the Electorate of our gracious monarch in Hanover,
threatening that they would occupy it; as they had done before, when
D’Estrees beat the hero of Culloden, the gallant Duke of Cumberland, and
caused him to sign the capitulation of Closter Zeven. An advance upon
Hanover always caused a great agitation in the Royal bosom of the King
of England; more troops were sent to join us, convoys of treasure were
passed over to our forces, and to our ally’s the King of Prussia; and
although, in spite of all assistance, the army under Prince Ferdinand
was very much weaker than that of the invading enemy, yet we had the
advantage of better supplies, one of the greatest Generals in the world:
and, I was going to add, of British valour, but the less we say about
THAT the better. My Lord George Sackville did not exactly cover himself
with laurels at Minden; otherwise there might have been won there one of
the greatest victories of modern times.
Throwing himself between the French and the interior of the Electorate,
Prince Ferdinand wisely took possession of the free town of Bremen,
which he made his storehouse and place of arms; and round which he
gathered all his troops, making ready to fight the famous battle of
Minden.
Were these Memoirs not characterised by truth, and did I deign to utter
a single word for which my own personal experience did not give me the
fullest authority, I might easily make myself the hero of some strange
and popular adventures, and, after the fashion of novel-writers,
introduce my reader to the great characters of this remarkable time.
These persons (I mean the romance-writers), if they take a drummer or
a dustman for a hero, somehow manage to bring him in contact with
the greatest lords and most notorious personages of the empire; and
I warrant me there’s not one of them but, in describing the battle
of Minden, would manage to bring Prince Ferdinand, and my Lord George
Sackville, and my Lord Granby, into presence. It would have been easy
for me to have SAID I was present when the orders were brought to Lord
George to charge with the cavalry and finish the rout of the Frenchmen,
and when he refused to do so, and thereby spoiled the great victory. But
the fact is, I was two miles off from the cavalry when his Lordship’s
fatal hesitation took place, and none of us soldiers of the line knew of
what had occurred until we came to talk about the fight over our kettles
in the evening, and repose after the labours of a hard-fought day. I saw
no one of higher rank that day than my colonel and a couple of orderly
officers riding by in the smoke--no one on our side, that is. A poor
corporal (as I then had the disgrace of being) is not generally invited
into the company of commanders and the great; but, in revenge, I saw,
I promise you, some very good company on the FRENCH part, for their
regiments of Lorraine and Royal Cravate were charging us all day; and
in THAT sort of MELEE high and low are pretty equally received. I hate
bragging, but I cannot help saying that I made a very close acquaintance
with the colonel of the Cravates; for I drove my bayonet into his body,
and finished off a poor little ensign, so young, slender, and small,
that a blow from my pigtail would have despatched him, I think, in
place of the butt of my musket, with which I clubbed him down. I killed,
besides, four more officers and men, and in the poor ensign’s pocket
found a purse of fourteen louis-d’or, and a silver box of sugar-plums;
of which the former present was very agreeable to me. If people would
tell their stories of battles in this simple way, I think the cause of
truth would not suffer by it. All I know of this famous fight of Minden
(except from books) is told here above. The ensign’s silver bon-bon box
and his purse of gold; the livid face of the poor fellow as he fell;
the huzzas of the men of my company as I went out under a smart fire
and rifled him; their shouts and curses as we came hand in hand with the
Frenchmen,--these are, in truth, not very dignified recollections, and
had best be passed over briefly. When my kind friend Fagan was shot, a
brother captain, and his very good friend, turned to Lieutenant Rawson
and said, ‘Fagan’s down; Rawson, there’s your company.’ It was all the
epitaph my brave patron got. ‘I should have left you a hundred guineas,
Redmond,’ were his last words to me, ‘but for a cursed run of ill luck
last night at faro.’ And he gave me a faint squeeze of the hand; then,
as the word was given to advance, I left him. When we came back to our
old ground, which we presently did, he was lying there still; but he
was dead. Some of our people had already torn off his epaulets, and,
no doubt, had rifled his purse. Such knaves and ruffians do men in war
become! It is well for gentlemen to talk of the age of chivalry; but
remember the starving brutes whom they lead--men nursed in poverty,
entirely ignorant, made to take a pride in deeds of blood--men who can
have no amusement but in drunkenness, debauch, and plunder. It is with
these shocking instruments that your great warriors and kings have been
doing their murderous work in the world; and while, for instance, we are
at the present moment admiring the ‘Great Frederick,’ as we call him,
and his philosophy, and his liberality, and his military genius, I, who
have served him, and been, as it were, behind the scenes of which that
great spectacle is composed, can only look at it with horror. What
a number of items of human crime, misery, slavery, go to form that
sum-total of glory! I can recollect a certain day about three weeks
after the battle of Minden, and a farmhouse in which some of us entered;
and how the old woman and her daughters served us, trembling, to wine;
and how we got drunk over the wine, and the house was in a flame,
presently; and woe betide the wretched fellow afterwards who came home
to look for his house and his children!