When my visit to my brother was concluded, and my wife and young child

had returned to our maternal house at Richmond, I made it my business to

go over to our Governor, then at his country house, near Williamsburg,

and confer with him regarding these open preparations for war, which

were being made not only in our own province, but in every one of the

colonies as far as we could learn. Gentlemen, with whose names history

has since made all the world familiar, were appointed from Virginia as

Delegates to the General Congress about to be held in Philadelphia. In

Massachusetts the people and the Royal troops were facing each other

almost in open hostility: in Maryland and Pennsylvania we flattered

ourselves that a much more loyal spirit was prevalent: in the Carolinas

and Georgia the mother country could reckon upon staunch adherents, and

a great majority of the inhabitants: and it never was to be supposed

that our own Virginia would forgo its ancient loyalty. We had but few

troops in the province, but its gentry were proud of their descent from

the Cavaliers of the old times: and round about our Governor were swarms

of loud and confident Loyalists who were only eager for the moment when

they might draw the sword, and scatter the rascally rebels before them.

Of course, in these meetings I was forced to hear many a hard word

against my poor Harry. His wife, all agreed (and not without good

reason, perhaps), had led him to adopt these extreme anti-British

opinions which he had of late declared; and he was infatuated by his

attachment to the gentleman of Mount Vernon, it was farther said, whose

opinions my brother always followed, and who, day by day, was committing

himself farther in the dreadful and desperate course of resistance.

“This is your friend,” the people about his Excellency said, “this is

the man you favoured, who has had your special confidence, and who has

repeatedly shared your hospitality!” It could not but be owned much of

this was true: though what some of our eager Loyalists called treachery

was indeed rather a proof of the longing desire Mr. Washington and other

gentlemen had, not to withdraw from their allegiance to the Crown, but

to remain faithful, and exhaust the very last chance of reconciliation,

before they risked the other terrible alternative of revolt and

separation. Let traitors arm, and villains draw the parricidal sword! We

at least would remain faithful; the unconquerable power of England would

be exerted, and the misguided and ungrateful provinces punished and

brought back to their obedience. With what cheers we drank his Majesty's

health after our banquets! We would die in defence of his rights; we

would have a Prince of his Royal house to come and govern his ancient

dominions! In consideration of my own and my excellent mother's loyalty,

my brother's benighted conduct should be forgiven. Was it yet too late

to secure him by offering him a good command? Would I not intercede

with him, who, it was known, had a great influence over him? In our

Williamsburg councils we were alternately in every state of exaltation

and triumph, of hope, of fury against the rebels, of anxious expectancy

of home succour, of doubt, distrust, and gloom.

I promised to intercede with my brother; and wrote to him, I own, with

but little hope of success, repeating, and trying to strengthen the

arguments which I had many a time used in our conversations. My mother,

too, used her authority; but from this, I own, I expected little

advantage. She assailed him, as her habit was, with such texts of

Scripture as she thought bore out her own opinion, and threatened

punishment to him. She menaced him with the penalties which must fall

upon those who were disobedient to the powers that be. She pointed to

his elder brother's example; and hinted, I fear, at his subjection to

his wife, the very worst argument she could use in such a controversy.

She did not show me her own letter to him; possibly she knew I might

find fault with the energy of some of the expressions she thought proper

to employ; but she showed me his answer, from which I gathered what the

style and tenor of her argument had been. And if Madam Esmond brought

Scripture to her aid, Mr. Hal, to my surprise, brought scores of texts

to bear upon her in reply, and addressed her in a very neat, temperate,

and even elegant composition, which I thought his wife herself was

scarcely capable of penning. Indeed, I found he had enlisted the

services of Mr. Belman, the New Richmond clergyman, who had taken up

strong opinions on the Whig side, and who preached and printed sermons

against Hagan (who, as I have said, was of our faction), in which I fear

Belman had the best of the dispute.

My exhortations to Hal had no more success than our mother's. He did

not answer my letters. Being still farther pressed by the friends of the

Government, I wrote over most imprudently to say I would visit him at

the end of the week at Fanny's Mount; but on arriving, I only found my

sister, who received me with perfect cordiality, but informed me that

Hal was gone into the country, ever so far towards the Blue Mountains

to look at some horses, and was to be away--she did not know how long he

was to be away!

I knew then there was no hope. “My dear,” I said, “as far as I can judge

from the signs of the times, the train that has been laid these years

must have a match put to it before long. Harry is riding away. God knows

to what end.”

“The Lord prosper the righteous cause, Sir George,” says she.

“Amen, with all my heart. You and he speak as Americans; I as an

Englishman. Tell him from me, that when anything in the course of nature

shall happen to our mother, I have enough for me and mine in England,

and shall resign all our land here in Virginia to him.”

“You don't mean that, George?” she cries, with brightening eyes. “Well,

to be sure, it is but right and fair,” she presently added. “Why should

you, who are the eldest but by an hour, have everything? a palace and

lands in England--the plantation here--the title--and children--and

my poor Harry none? But 'tis generous of you all the same--leastways

handsome and proper, and I didn't expect it of you; and you don't take

after your mother in this, Sir George, that you don't, nohow. Give my

love to sister Theo!” And she offers me a cheek to kiss, ere I ride away

from her door. With such a woman as Fanny to guide him, how could I hope

to make a convert of my brother?

Having met with this poor success in my enterprise, I rode back to our

Governor, with whom I agreed that it was time to arm in earnest, and

prepare ourselves against the shock that certainly was at hand. He and

his whole Court of Officials were not a little agitated and excited;

needlessly savage, I thought, in their abuse of the wicked Whigs, and

loud in their shouts of Old England for ever; but they were all eager

for the day when the contending parties could meet hand to hand, and

they could have an opportunity of riding those wicked Whigs down. And I

left my lord, having received the thanks of his Excellency in Council,

and engaged to do my best endeavours to raise a body of men in defence

of the Crown. Hence the corps, called afterwards the Westmoreland

Defenders, had its rise, of which I had the honour to be appointed

Colonel, and which I was to command when it appeared in the field. And

that fortunate event must straightway take place, so soon as the county

knew that a gentleman of my station and name would take the command of

the force. The announcement was duly made in the Government Gazette, and

we filled in our officers readily enough; but the recruits, it must

be owned, were slow to come in, and quick to disappear. Nevertheless,

friend Hagan eagerly came forward to offer himself as chaplain. Madam

Esmond gave us our colours, and progressed about the country engaging

volunteers; but the most eager recruiter of all was my good old tutor,

little Mr. Dempster, who had been out as a boy on the Jacobite side in

Scotland, and who went specially into the Carolinas, among the children

of his banished old comrades, who had worn the white cockade of Prince

Charles, and who most of all showed themselves in this contest still

loyal to the Crown.

Hal's expedition in search of horses led him not only so far as the Blue

Mountains in our colony, but thence on a long journey to Annapolis

and Baltimore; and from Baltimore to Philadelphia, to be sure; where

a second General Congress was now sitting, attended by our Virginian

gentlemen of the last year. Meanwhile, all the almanacs tell what had

happened. Lexington had happened, and the first shots were fired in the

war which was to end in the independence of our native country. We still

protested of our loyalty to his Majesty; but we stated our determination

to die or be free; and some twenty thousand of our loyal petitioners

assembled round about Boston with arms in their hands and cannon, to

which they had helped themselves out of the Government stores. Mr.

Arnold had begun that career which was to end so brilliantly, by the

daring and burglarious capture of two forts, of which he forced the

doors. Three generals from Bond Street, with a large reinforcement,

were on their way to help Mr. Gage out of his ugly position at Boston.

Presently the armies were actually engaged; and our British generals

commenced their career of conquest and pacification in the colonies by

the glorious blunder of Breed's Hill. Here they fortified themselves,

feeling themselves not strong enough for the moment to win any more

glorious victories over the rebels; and the two armies lay watching

each other whilst Congress was deliberating at Philadelphia who should

command the forces of the confederated colonies.

We all know on whom the most fortunate choice of the nation fell. Of the

Virginian regiment which marched to join the new General-in-Chief, one

was commanded by Henry Esmond Warrington, Esq., late a Captain in

his Majesty's service; and by his side rode his little wife, of whose

bravery we often subsequently heard. I was glad, for one, that she had

quitted Virginia; for, had she remained after her husband's departure,

our mother would infallibly have gone over to give her battle; and I was

thankful, at least, that that terrific incident of civil war was spared

to our family and history.

The rush of our farmers and country-folk was almost all directed towards

the new northern army; and our people were not a little flattered at

the selection of a Virginian gentleman for the principal command. With

a thrill of wrath and fury the provinces heard of the blood drawn

at Lexington; and men yelled denunciations against the cruelty and

wantonness of the bloody British invader. The invader was but doing his

duty, and was met and resisted by men in arms, who wished to prevent him

from helping himself to his own; but people do not stay to weigh their

words when they mean to be angry; the colonists had taken their side;

and, with what I own to be a natural spirit and ardour, were determined

to have a trial of strength with the braggart domineering mother

country. Breed's Hill became a mountain, as it were, which all men of

the American Continent might behold, with Liberty, Victory, Glory, on

its flaming summit. These dreaded troops could be withstood, then, by

farmers and ploughmen. These famous officers could be outgeneralled by

doctors, lawyers, and civilians! Granted that Britons could conquer

all the world;--here were their children who could match and conquer

Britons! Indeed, I don't know which of the two deserves the palm, either

for bravery or vainglory. We are in the habit of laughing at our French

neighbours for boasting, gasconading, and so forth; but for a steady

self-esteem and indomitable confidence in our own courage, greatness,

magnanimity;--who can compare with Britons, except their children across

the Atlantic?

The people round about us took the people's side for the most part

in the struggle, and, truth to say, Sir George Warrington found his

regiment of Westmoreland Defenders but very thinly manned at the

commencement, and woefully diminished in numbers presently, not only

after the news of battle from the north, but in consequence of the

behaviour of my Lord our Governor, whose conduct enraged no one more

than his own immediate partisans, and the loyal adherents of the Crown

throughout the colony. That he would plant the King's standard, and

summon all loyal gentlemen to rally round it, had been a measure agreed

in countless meetings, and applauded over thousands of bumpers. I have a

pretty good memory, and could mention the name of many a gentleman, now

a smug officer of the United States Government, whom I have heard hiccup

out a prayer that he might be allowed to perish under the folds of his

country's flag; or roar a challenge to the bloody traitors absent with

the rebel army. But let bygones be bygones. This, however, is matter of

public history, that his lordship, our Governor, a peer of Scotland, the

Sovereign's representative in his Old Dominion, who so loudly invited

all the lieges to join the King's standard, was the first to put it in

his pocket, and fly to his ships out of reach of danger. He would not

leave them, save as a pirate at midnight to burn and destroy. Meanwhile,

we loyal gentry remained on shore, committed to our cause, and only

subject to greater danger in consequence of the weakness and cruelty of

him who ought to have been our leader. It was the beginning of June, our

orchards and gardens were all blooming with plenty and summer; a week

before I had been over at Williamsburg, exchanging compliments with his

Excellency, devising plans for future movements by which we should be

able to make good head against rebellion, shaking hands heartily at

parting, and vincere aut mori the very last words upon all our lips. Our

little family was gathered at Richmond, talking over, as we did daily,

the prospect of affairs in the north, the quarrels between our own

Assembly and his Excellency, by whom they had been afresh convened, when

our ghostly Hagan rushes into our parlour, and asks, “Have we heard the

news of the Governor?”

“Has he dissolved the Assembly again, and put that scoundrel Patrick

Henry in irons?” asks Madam Esmond.

“No such thing! His lordship with his lady and family have left their

palace privately at night. They are on board a man-of-war off York,

whence my lord has sent a despatch to the Assembly, begging them to

continue their sitting, and announcing that he himself had only quitted

his Government House out of fear of the fury of the people.”

What was to become of the sheep, now the shepherd had run away? No

entreaties could be more pathetic than those of the gentlemen of the

House of Assembly, who guaranteed their Governor security if he would

but land, and implored him to appear amongst them, if but to pass bills

and transact the necessary business. No: the man-of-war was his seat of

government, and my lord desired his House of Commons to wait upon him

there. This was erecting the King's standard with a vengeance. Our

Governor had left us; our Assembly perforce ruled in his stead; a rabble

of people followed the fugitive Viceroy on board his ships. A mob of

negroes deserted out of the plantations to join this other deserter. He

and his black allies landed here and there in darkness, and emulated the

most lawless of our opponents in their alacrity at seizing and burning.

He not only invited runaway negroes, but he sent an ambassador to

Indians with entreaties to join his standard. When he came on shore it

was to burn and destroy: when the people resisted, as at Norfolk and

Hampton, he retreated and betook himself to his ships again.

Even my mother, after that miserable flight of our chief, was scared

at the aspect of affairs, and doubted of the speedy putting down of

the rebellion. The arming of the negroes was, in her opinion, the most

cowardly blow of all. The loyal gentry were ruined, and robbed, many of

them, of their only property. A score of our worst hands deserted from

Richmond and Castlewood, and fled to our courageous Governor's fleet;

not all of them, though some of them, were slain, and a couple hung by

the enemy for plunder and robbery perpetrated whilst with his lordship's

precious army. Because her property was wantonly injured, and his

Majesty's chief officer an imbecile, would Madam Esmond desert the

cause of Royalty and Honour? My good mother was never so prodigiously

dignified, and loudly and enthusiastically loyal, as after she heard of

our Governor's lamentable defection. The people round about her, though

most of them of quite a different way of thinking, listened to her

speeches without unkindness. Her oddities were known far and wide

through our province; where, I am afraid, many of the wags amongst our

young men were accustomed to smoke her, as the phrase then was, and draw

out her stories about the Marquis her father, about the splendour of

her family, and so forth. But along with her oddities, her charities and

kindness were remembered, and many a rebel, as she called them, had a

sneaking regard for the pompous little Tory lady.

As for the Colonel of the Westmoreland Defenders, though that

gentleman's command dwindled utterly away after the outrageous conduct

of his chief, yet I escaped from some very serious danger which might

have befallen me and mine in consequence of some disputes which I was

known to have had with my Lord Dunmore. Going on board his ship after

he had burned the stores at Hampton, and issued the proclamation calling

the negroes to his standard, I made so free as to remonstrate with him

in regard to both measures; I implored him to return to Williamsburg,

where hundreds of us, thousands, I hoped, would be ready to defend him

to the last extremity; and in my remonstrance used terms so free, or

rather, as I suspect, indicated my contempt for his conduct so clearly

by my behaviour, that his lordship flew into a rage, said I was a rebel

like all the rest of them, and ordered me under arrest there on board

his own ship. In my quality of militia officer (since the breaking out

of the troubles I commonly used a red coat, to show that I wore the

King's colour) I begged for a court-martial immediately; and turning

round to two officers who had been present during our altercation,

desired them to remember all that had passed between his lordship

and me. These gentlemen were no doubt of my way of thinking as to

the chief's behaviour, and our interview ended in my going ashore

unaccompanied by a guard. The story got wind amongst the Whig gentry,

and was improved in the telling. I had spoken out my mind manfully to

the Governor; no Whig could have uttered sentiments more liberal. When

riots took place in Richmond, and of the Loyalists remaining there, many

were in peril of life and betook themselves to the ships, my mother's

property and house were never endangered, nor her family insulted.

We were still at the stage when a reconciliation was fondly thought

possible. “Ah! if all the Tories were like you,” a distinguished Whig

has said to me, “we and the people at home should soon come together

again.” This, of course, was before the famous Fourth of July, and that

Declaration which rendered reconcilement impossible. Afterwards, when

parties grew more rancorous, motives much less creditable were assigned

for my conduct, and it was said I chose to be a Liberal Tory because

I was a cunning fox, and wished to keep my estate whatever way things

went. And this, I am bound to say, is the opinion regarding my humble

self which has obtained in very high quarters at home, where a profound

regard for my own interest has been supposed not uncommonly to have

occasioned my conduct during the late unhappy troubles.

There were two or three persons in the world (for I had not told my

mother how I was resolved to cede to my brother all my life-interest

in our American property) who knew that I had no mercenary motives in

regard to the conduct I pursued. It was not worth while to undeceive

others; what were life worth, if a man were forced to feel himself a la

piste of all the calumnies uttered against him? And I do not quite know

to this present day, how it happened that my mother, that notorious

Loyalist, was left for several years quite undisturbed in her house at

Castlewood, a stray troop or company of Continentals being occasionally

quartered upon her. I do not know for certain, I say, how this piece of

good fortune happened, though I can give a pretty shrewd guess as to the

cause of it. Madam Fanny, after a campaign before Boston, came back to

Fanny's Mount, leaving her Colonel. My modest Hal, until the conclusion

of the war, would accept no higher rank, believing that in command of

a regiment he could be more useful than in charge of a division. Madam

Fanny, I say, came back, and it was remarkable after her return how

her old asperity towards my mother seemed to be removed, and what an

affection she showed for her and all the property. She was great friends

with the Governor and some of the most influential gentlemen of the new

Assembly:--Madam Esmond was harmless, and for her son's sake, who

was bravely battling for his country, her errors should be lightly

visited:--I know not how it was, but for years she remained unharmed,

except in respect of heavy Government requisitions, which of course she

had to pay, and it was not until the redcoats appeared about our house,

that much serious evil came to it.

CHAPTER XC

In which we both fight and run away

What was the use of a Colonel without a regiment? The Governor and

Council who had made such a parade of thanks in endowing me with mine,

were away out of sight, skulking on board ships, with an occasional

piracy and arson on shore. My Lord Dunmore's black allies frightened

away those of his own blood; and besides these negroes whom he had

summoned round him in arms, we heard that he had sent an envoy among

the Indians of the South, and that they were to come down in numbers

and tomahawk our people into good behaviour. “And these are to be our

allies!” I say to my mother, exchanging ominous looks with her, and

remembering, with a ghastly distinctness, that savage whose face glared

over mine, and whose knife was at my throat when Florac struck him down

on Braddock's Field. We put our house of Castlewood into as good a state

of defence as we could devise; but, in truth, it was more of the red men

and the blacks than of the rebels we were afraid. I never saw my mother

lose courage but once, and then when she was recounting to us the

particulars of our father's death in a foray of Indians more than forty

years ago. Seeing some figures one night moving in front of our house,

nothing could persuade the good lady but that they were savages, and

she sank on her knees crying out, “The Lord have mercy upon us! The

Indians--the Indians!”

My lord's negro allies vanished on board his ships, or where they could

find pay and plunder; but the painted heroes from the South never made

their appearance, though I own to have looked at my mother's grey head,

my wife's brown hair, and our little one's golden ringlets, with a

horrible pang of doubt lest these should fall the victims of ruffian

war. And it was we who fought with such weapons, and enlisted these

allies! But that I dare not (so to speak) be setting myself up as

interpreter of Providence, and pointing out the special finger of Heaven

(as many people are wont to do), I would say our employment of these

Indians, and of the German mercenaries, brought their own retribution

with them in this war. In the field, where the mercenaries were attacked

by the Provincials, they yielded, and it was triumphing over them that

so raised the spirit of the Continental army; and the murder of one

woman (Miss McCrea) by a half-dozen drunken Indians, did more harm

to the Royal cause than the loss of a battle or the destruction of

regiments.

Now, the Indian panic over, Madam Esmond's courage returned: and she

began to be seriously and not unjustly uneasy at the danger which I ran

myself, and which I brought upon others, by remaining in Virginia.

“What harm can they do me,” says she, “a poor woman? If I have one son

a colonel without a regiment, I have another with a couple of hundred

Continentals behind him in Mr. Washington's camp. If the Royalists come,

they will let me off for your sake; if the rebels appear, I shall have

Harry's passport. I don't wish, sir, I don't like that your delicate

wife and this dear little baby should be here, and only increase the

risk of all of us! We must have them away to Boston or New York. Don't

talk about defending me! Who will think of hurting a poor, harmless,

old woman? If the rebels come, I shall shelter behind Mrs. Fanny's

petticoats, and shall be much safer without you in the house than in

it.” This she said in part, perhaps, because 'twas reasonable; more so

because she would have me and my family out of the danger; and danger

or not, for her part felt that she was determined to remain in the land

where her father was buried, and she was born. She was living backwards,

so to speak. She had seen the new generation, and blessed them, and bade

them farewell. She belonged to the past, and old days and memories.

While we were debating about the Boston scheme, comes the news that

the British have evacuated that luckless city altogether, never having

ventured to attack Mr. Washington in his camp at Cambridge (though he

lay there for many months without powder at our mercy); but waiting

until he procured ammunition, and seized and fortified Dorchester

heights, which commanded the town, out of which the whole British army

and colony was obliged to beat a retreat. That the King's troops won the

battle at Bunker's Hill, there is no more doubt than that they beat the

French at Blenheim; but through the war their chiefs seem constantly to

have been afraid of assaulting entrenched Continentals afterwards; else

why, from July to March, hesitate to strike an almost defenceless enemy?

Why the hesitation at Long Island, when the Continental army was in our

hand? Why that astonishing timorousness--of Howe before Valley Forge,

where the relics of a force starving, sickening, and in rags, could

scarcely man the lines, which they held before a great, victorious, and

perfectly appointed army?

As the hopes and fears of the contending parties rose and fell, it was

curious to mark the altered tone of the partisans of either. When the

news came to us in the country of the evacuation of Boston, every little

Whig in the neighbourhood made his bow to Madam, and advised her to

a speedy submission. She did not carry her loyalty quite so openly as

heretofore, and flaunt her flag in the faces of the public, but she

never swerved. Every night and morning in private poor Hagan prayed for

the Royal Family in our own household, and on Sundays any neighbours

were welcome to attend the service, where my mother acted as a very

emphatic clerk, and the prayer for the High Court of Parliament under

our most religious and gracious King was very stoutly delivered. The

brave Hagan was a parson without a living, as I was a Militia Colonel

without a regiment. Hagan had continued to pray stoutly for King George

in Williamsburg, long after his Excellency our Governor had run away:

but on coming to church one Sunday to perform his duty, he found a

corporal's guard at the church-door, who told him that the Committee of

Safety had put another divine in his place, and he was requested to keep

a quiet tongue in his head. He told the men to “lead him before

their chiefs” (our honest friend always loved tall words and tragic

attitudes); and accordingly was marched through the streets to the

Capitol, with a chorus of white and coloured blackguards at the skirts

of his gown; and had an interview with Messrs. Henry and the new State

officers, and confronted the robbers, as he said, in their den. Of

course he was for making an heroic speech before these gentlemen (and

was one of many men who perhaps would have no objection to be made

martyrs, so that they might be roasted coram populo, or tortured in a

full house), but Mr. Henry was determined to give him no such chance.

After keeping Hagan three or four hours waiting in an anteroom in

the company of negroes, when the worthy divine entered the new chief

magistrate's room with an undaunted mien, and began a prepared speech

with--“Sir, by what authority am I, a minister of the----” “Mr. Hagan,”

says the other, interrupting him, “I am too busy to listen to speeches.

And as for King George, he has henceforth no more authority in this

country than King Nebuchadnezzar. Mind you that, and hold your tongue,

if you please! Stick to King John, sir, and King Macbeth; and if you

will send round your benefit-tickets, all the Assembly shall come and

hear you. Did you ever see Mr. Hagan on the boards, when you was

in London, General?” And, so saying, Henry turns round upon Mr.

Washington's second in command, General Lee, who was now come into

Virginia upon State affairs, and our shamefaced good Hagan was bustled

out of the room, reddening, and almost crying with shame. After this

event we thought that Hagan's ministrations were best confined to us in

the country, and removed the worthy pastor from his restive lambs in the

city.

The selection of Virginians to the very highest civil and military

appointments of the new government bribed and flattered many of our

leading people, who, otherwise, and but for the outrageous conduct of

our government, might have remained faithful to the Crown, and made

good head against the rising rebellion. But, although we Loyalists were

gagged and muzzled, though the Capitol was in the hands of the Whigs,

and our vaunted levies of loyal recruits so many Falstaff's regiments

for the most part, the faithful still kept intelligences with one

another in the colony, and with our neighbours; and though we did

not rise, and though we ran away, and though, in examination before

committees, justices, and so forth, some of our frightened people gave

themselves Republican airs, and vowed perdition to kings and nobles; yet

we knew each other pretty well, and--according as the chances were more

or less favourable to us, the master more or less hard--we concealed

our colours, showed our colours, half showed our colours, or downright

apostatised for the nonce, and cried, “Down with King George!” Our

negroes bore about, from house to house, all sorts of messages and

tokens. Endless underhand plots and schemes were engaged in by those who

could not afford the light. The battle over, the neutrals come and join

the winning side, and shout as loudly as the patriots. The runaways

are not counted. Will any man tell me that the signers and ardent

well-wishers of the Declaration of Independence were not in a minority

of the nation, and that the minority did not win? We knew that apart

of the defeated army of Massachusetts was about to make an important

expedition southward, upon the success of which the very greatest hopes

were founded; and I, for one, being anxious to make a movement as soon

as there was any chance of activity, had put myself in communication

with the ex-Governor Martin, of North Carolina, whom I proposed to join,

with three or four of our Virginian gentlemen, officers of that notable

corps of which we only wanted privates. We made no particular mystery

about our departure from Castlewood; the affairs of Congress were

not going so well yet that the new government could afford to lay any

particular stress or tyranny upon persons of a doubtful way of thinking.

Gentlemen's houses were still open; and in our southern fashion we would

visit our friends for months at a time. My wife and I, with our infant

and a fitting suite of servants, took leave of Madam Esmond on a visit

to a neighbouring plantation. We went thence to another friend's house,

and then to another, till finally we reached Wilmington, in North

Carolina, which was the point at which we expected to stretch a hand to

the succours which were coming to meet us.

Ere our arrival, our brother Carolinian Royalists had shown themselves

in some force. Their encounters with the Whigs had been unlucky. The

poor Highlanders had been no more fortunate in their present contest in

favour of King George, than when they had drawn their swords against him

in their own country. We did not reach Wilmington until the end of May,

by which time we found Admiral Parker's squadron there, with General

Clinton and five British regiments on board, whose object was a descent

upon Charleston.

The General, to whom I immediately made myself known, seeing that my

regiment consisted of Lady Warrington, our infant, whom she was nursing,

and three negro servants, received us at first with a very grim welcome.

But Captain Horner of the Sphinx frigate, who had been on the Jamaica

station, and received, like all the rest of the world, many kindnesses

from our dear Governor there, when he heard that my wife was General

Lambert's daughter, eagerly received her on board, and gave up his

best cabin to our service; and so we were refugees, too, like my Lord

Dunmore, having waved our flag, to be sure, and pocketed it, and

slipped out at the back door. From Wilmington we bore away quickly to

Charleston, and in the course of the voyage and our delay in the river,

previous to our assault on the place, I made some acquaintance with

Mr. Clinton, which increased to a further intimacy. It was the King's

birthday when we appeared in the river: we determined it was a glorious

day for the commencement of the expedition.

It did not take place for some days after, and I leave out, purposely,

all descriptions of my Penelope parting from her Hector, going forth on

this expedition. In the first place, Hector is perfectly well (though

a little gouty), nor has any rascal of a Pyrrhus made a prize of his

widow: and in times of war and commotion, are not such scenes of woe and

terror, and parting, occurring every hour? I can see the gentle face yet

over the bulwark, as we descend the ship's side into the boats, and the

smile of the infant on her arm. What old stories, to be sure! Captain

Miles, having no natural taste for poetry, you have forgot the verses,

no doubt, in Mr. Pope's Homer, in which you are described as parting

with your heroic father; but your mother often read them to you as

a boy, and keeps the gorget I wore on that day somewhere amongst her

dressing-boxes now.

My second venture at fighting was no more lucky than my first. We came

back to our ships that evening thoroughly beaten. The madcap Lee, whom

Clinton had faced at Boston, now met him at Charleston. Lee, and the

gallant garrison there, made a brilliant and most successful resistance.

The fort on Sullivan's Island, which we attacked, was a nut we could not

crack. The fire of all our frigates was not strong enough to pound its

shell; the passage by which we moved up to the assault of the place was

not fordable, as those officers found--Sir Henry at the head of them,

who was always the first to charge--who attempted to wade it. Death by

shot, by drowning, by catching my death of cold, I had braved before I

returned to my wife; and our frigate being aground for a time and got

off with difficulty, was agreeably cannonaded by the enemy until she got

off her bank.

A small incident in the midst of this unlucky struggle was the occasion

of a subsequent intimacy which arose between me and Sir Harry Clinton,

and bound me to that most gallant officer during the Period in which

it was my fortune to follow the war. Of his qualifications as a leader

there may be many opinions: I fear to say, regarding a man I heartily

respect and admire, there ought only to be one. Of his personal bearing

and his courage there can be no doubt; he was always eager to show it;

and whether at the final charge on Breed's Hill, when at the head of

the rallied troops he carried the Continental lines, or here before

Sullivan's Fort, or a year later at Fort Washington, when, standard in

hand, he swept up the height, and entered the fort at the head of the

storming column, Clinton was always foremost in the race of battle, and

the King's service knew no more admirable soldier.

We were taking to the water from our boats, with the intention of

forcing a column to the fort, through a way which our own guns had

rendered practicable, when a shot struck a boat alongside of us, so

well aimed, as actually to put three-fourths of the boat's crew hors de

combat, and knock down the officer steering, and the flag behind him.

I could not help crying out, “Bravo! well aimed!” for no ninepins ever

went down more helplessly than these poor fellows before the round shot.

Then the General, turning round to me, says, rather grimly, “Sir, the

behaviour of the enemy seems to please you!” “I am pleased, sir,” says

I, “that my countrymen, yonder, should fight as becomes our nation.”

We floundered on towards the fort in the midst of the same amiable

attentions from small arms and great, until we found the water was up

to our breasts and deepening at every step, when we were fain to take

to our boats again and pull out of harm's way. Sir Henry waited upon my

Lady Warrington on board the Sphinx after this, and was very gracious to

her, and mighty facetious regarding the character of the humble writer

of the present memoir, whom his Excellency always described as a rebel

at heart. I pray my children may live to see or engage in no great

revolutions,--such as that, for instance, raging in the country of our

miserable French neighbours. Save a very, very few indeed, the actors in

those great tragedies do not bear to be scanned too closely; the chiefs

are often no better than ranting quacks; the heroes ignoble puppets; the

heroines anything but pure. The prize is not always to the brave. In our

revolution it certainly did fall, for once and for a wonder, to the

most deserving: but who knows his enemies now? His great and surprising

triumphs were not in those rare engagements with the enemy where he

obtained a trifling mastery; but over Congress; over hunger and disease;

over lukewarm friends, or smiling foes in his own camp, whom his great

spirit had to meet and master. When the struggle was over, and our

important chiefs who had conducted it began to squabble and accuse

each other in their own defence before the nation--what charges and

counter-charges were brought; what pretexts of delay were urged; what

piteous excuses were put forward that this fleet arrived too late; that

that regiment mistook its orders; that these cannon-balls would not fit

those guns; and so to the end of the chapter! Here was a general who

beat us with no shot at times, and no powder, and no money; and he never

thought of a convention; his courage never capitulated! Through all the

doubt and darkness, the danger and long tempest of the war, I think it

was only the American leader's indomitable soul that remained entirely

steady.

Of course our Charleston expedition was made the most of, and pronounced

a prodigious victory by the enemy, who had learnt (from their parents,

perhaps) to cry victory if a corporal's guard were surprised, as loud

as if we had won a pitched battle. Mr. Lee rushed back to New York, the

conqueror of conquerors, trumpeting his glory, and by no man received

with more eager delight than by the Commander-in-Chief of the American

Army. It was my dear Lee and my dear General between them, then; and it

hath always touched me in the history of our early Revolution to note

that simple confidence and admiration with which the General-in-Chief

was wont to regard officers under him, who had happened previously to

serve with the King's army. So the Mexicans of old looked and wondered

when they first saw an armed Spanish horseman! And this mad, flashy

braggart (and another Continental general, whose name and whose luck

afterwards were sufficiently notorious) you may be sure took advantage

of the modesty of the Commander-in-Chief, and advised, and blustered,

and sneered, and disobeyed orders; daily presenting fresh obstacles

(as if he had not enough otherwise!) in the path over which only Mr.

Washington's astonishing endurance could have enabled him to march.

Whilst we were away on our South Carolina expedition, the famous Fourth

of July had taken place, and we and the thirteen United States were

parted for ever. My own native state of Virginia had also distinguished

itself by announcing that all men are equally free; that all power is

vested in the people, who have an inalienable right to alter, reform,

or abolish their form of government at pleasure, and that the idea of

an hereditary first magistrate is unnatural and absurd! Our General

presented me with this document fresh from Williamsburg, as we were

sailing northward by the Virginia capes, and, amidst not a little

amusement and laughter, pointed out to me the faith to which, from the

Fourth inst. inclusive, I was bound. There was no help for it; I was a

Virginian--my godfathers had promised and vowed, in my name, that all

men were equally free (including, of course, the race of poor Gumbo),

that the idea of a monarchy is absurd, and that I had the right to alter

my form of government at pleasure. I thought of Madam Esmond at home,

and how she would look when these articles of faith were brought her to

subscribe; how would Hagan receive them? He demolished them in a sermon,

in which all the logic was on his side, but the U.S. Government has not,

somehow, been affected by the discourse; and when he came to touch upon

the point that all men being free, therefore Gumbo and Sady, and Nathan,

had assuredly a right to go to Congress: “Tut, tut! my good Mr. Hagan,”

says my mother, “let us hear no more of this nonsense; but leave such

wickedness and folly to the rebels!”

By the middle of August we were before New York, whither Mr. Howe had

brought his army that had betaken itself to Halifax after its inglorious

expulsion from Boston. The American Commander-in-Chief was at New

York, and a great battle inevitable; and I looked forward to it with

an inexpressible feeling of doubt and anxiety, knowing that my dearest

brother and his regiment formed part of the troops whom we must attack,

and could not but overpower. Almost the whole of the American army came

over to fight on a small island, where every officer on both sides knew

that they were to be beaten, and whence they had not a chance of escape.

Two frigates, out of a hundred we had placed so as to command the

enemy's entrenched camp and point of retreat across East River to New

York, would have destroyed every bark in which he sought to fly, and

compelled him to lay down his arms on shore. He fought: his hasty levies

were utterly overthrown; some of his generals, his best troops, his

artillery taken; the remnant huddled into their entrenched camp after

their rout, the pursuers entering it with them. The victors were called

back; the enemy was then pent up in a corner of the island, and could

not escape. “They are at our mercy, and are ours to-morrow,” says the

gentle General. Not a ship was set to watch the American force; not

a sentinel of ours could see a movement in their camp. A whole army

crossed under our eyes in one single night to the mainland without the

loss of a single man; and General Howe was suffered to remain in command

after this feat, and to complete his glories of Long Island and Breed's

Hill, at Philadelphia! A friend, to be sure, crossed in the night to say

the enemy's army was being ferried over, but he fell upon a picket of

Germans: they could not understand him: their commander was boozing or

asleep. In the morning, when the spy was brought to some one who could

comprehend the American language, the whole Continental force had

crossed the East River, and the empire over thirteen colonies had

slipped away.

The opinions I had about our chief were by no means uncommon in the

army; though, perhaps, wisely kept secret by gentlemen under Mr. Howe's

immediate command. Am I more unlucky than other folks, I wonder? or why

are my imprudent sayings carried about more than my neighbours'? My rage

that such a use was made of such a victory was no greater than that of

scores of gentlemen with the army. Why must my name forsooth be given up

to the Commander-in-Chief as that of the most guilty of the

grumblers? Personally, General Howe was perfectly brave, amiable, and

good-humoured.

“So, Sir George,” says he, “you find fault with me, as a military

man, because there was a fog after the battle on Long Island, and your

friends, the Continentals, gave me the slip! Surely we took and killed

enough of them; but there is no satisfying you gentlemen amateurs!” and

he turned his back on me, and shrugged his shoulders, and talked to some

one else. Amateur I might be, and he the most amiable of men; but if

King George had said to him, “Never more be officer of mine,” yonder

agreeable and pleasant Cassio would most certainly have had his desert.

I soon found how our Chief had come in possession of his information

regarding myself. My admirable cousin, Mr. William Esmond--who of course

had forsaken New York and his post, when all the Royal authorities fled

out of the place, and Washington occupied it,--returned along with our

troops and fleets; and, being a gentleman of good birth and name, and

well acquainted with the city, made himself agreeable to the newcomers

of the Royal army, the young bloods, merry fellows, and macaronis, by

introducing them to play-tables, taverns, and yet worse places, with

which the worthy gentleman continued to be familiar in the New World

as in the Old. Coelum non animum. However Will had changed his air, or

whithersoever he transported his carcase, he carried a rascal in his

skin.

I had heard a dozen stories of his sayings regarding my family, and was

determined neither to avoid him nor seek him; but to call him to account

whensoever we met; and, chancing one day to be at a coffee-house in a

friend's company, my worthy kinsman swaggered in with a couple of young

lads of the army, whom he found it was his pleasure and profit now

to lead into every kind of dissipation. I happened to know one of Mr.

Will's young companions, an aide-de-camp of General Clinton's, who had

been in my close company both at Charleston, before Sullivan's Island,

and in the action of Brooklyn, where our General gloriously led the

right wing of the English army. They took a box without noticing us

at first, though I heard my name three or four times mentioned by

my brawling kinsman, who ended some drunken speech he was making by

slapping his fist on the table, and swearing, “By----, I will do for

him, and the bloody rebel, his brother!”

“Ah! Mr. Esmond,” says I, coming forward with my hat on. (He looked a

little pale behind his punch-bowl.) “I have long wanted to see you, to

set some little matters right about which there has been a difference

between us.”

“And what may those be, sir?” says he, with a volley of oaths.

“You have chosen to cast a doubt upon my courage, and say that I shirked

a meeting with you when we were young men. Our relationship and our age

ought to prevent us from having recourse to such murderous follies” (Mr.

Will started up, looking fierce and relieved), “but I give you notice,

that though I can afford to overlook lies against myself, if I hear from

you a word in disparagement of my brother, Colonel Warrington, of the

Continental Army, I will hold you accountable.”

“Indeed, gentlemen! Mighty fine, indeed! You take notice of Sir George

Warrington's words!” cries Mr. Will over his punch-bowl.

“You have been pleased to say,” I continued, growing angry as I spoke,

and being a fool therefore for my pains, “that the very estates we hold

in this country are not ours, but of right revert to your family!”

“So they are ours! By George, they're ours! I've heard my brother

Castlewood say so a score of times!” swears Mr. Will.

“In that case, sir,” says I, hotly, “your brother, my Lord Castlewood,

tells no more truth than yourself. We have the titles at hone in

Virginia. They are registered in the courts there; and if ever I hear

one word more of this impertinence, I shall call you to account where no

constables will be at hand to interfere!”

“I wonder,” cries Will, in a choking voice, “that I don't cut him into

twenty thousand pieces as he stands there before me with his confounded

yellow face. It was my brother Castlewood won his money--no, it was his

brother; d---- you, which are you, the rebel or the other? I hate the

ugly faces of both of you, and, hic!--if you are for the King, show you

are for the King, and drink his health!” and he sank down into his box

with a hiccup and a wild laugh, which he repeated a dozen times, with

a hundred more oaths and vociferous outcries that I should drink the

King's health.

To reason with a creature in this condition, or ask explanations or

apologies from him, was absurd. I left Mr. Will to reel to his lodgings

under the care of his young friends--who were surprised to find an old

toper so suddenly affected and so utterly prostrated by liquor--and

limped home to my wife, whom I found happy in possession of a brief

letter from Hal, which a countryman had brought in; and who said not a

word about the affairs of the Continentals with whom he was engaged,

but wrote a couple of pages of rapturous eulogiums upon his brother's

behaviour in the field, which my dear Hal was pleased to admire, as he

admired everything I said and did.

I rather looked for a messenger from my amiable kinsman in consequence

of the speeches which had passed between us the night before, and did

not know but that I might be called by Will to make my words good; and

when accordingly Mr. Lacy (our companion of the previous evening) made

his appearance at an early hour of the forenoon, I was beckoning my Lady

Warrington to leave us, when, with a laugh and a cry of “Oh dear, no!”

Mr. Lacy begged her ladyship not to disturb herself.

“I have seen,” says he, “a gentleman who begs to send you his apologies

if he uttered a word last night which could offend you.”

“What apologies? what words?” asks the anxious wife.

I explained that roaring Will Esmond had met me in a coffee-house on the

previous evening, and quarrelled with me, as he had done with hundreds

before. “It appears the fellow is constantly abusive, and invariably

pleads drunkenness, and apologises the next morning, unless he is caned

over-night,” remarked Captain Lacy. And my lady, I dare say, makes a

little sermon, and asks why we gentlemen will go to idle coffee-houses

and run the risk of meeting roaring, roystering Will Esmonds?

Our sojourn in New York was enlivened by a project for burning the city

which some ardent patriots entertained and partially executed. Several

such schemes were laid in the course of the war, and each one of the

principal cities was doomed to fire; though, in the interests of peace

and goodwill, I hope it will be remembered that these plans never

originated with the cruel government of a tyrant king, but were always

proposed by gentlemen on the Continental side, who vowed that, rather

than remain under the ignominious despotism of the ruffian of Brunswick,

the fairest towns of America should burn. I presume that the sages who

were for burning down Boston were not actual proprietors in that

place, and the New York burners might come from other parts of the

country--from Philadelphia, or what not. Howbeit, the British spared

you, gentlemen, and we pray you give us credit for this act of

moderation.

I had not the fortune to be present in the action on the White Plains,

being detained by the hurt which I had received at Long Island, and

which broke out again and again, and took some time in the healing. The

tenderest of nurses watched me through my tedious malady, and was eager

for the day when I should doff my militia coat and return to the quiet

English home where Hetty and our good General were tending our children.

Indeed I don't know that I have yet forgiven myself for the pains and

terrors that I must have caused my poor wife, by keeping her separate

from her young ones, and away from her home, because, forsooth, I wished

to see a little more of the war then going on. Our grand tour in Europe

had been all very well. We had beheld St. Peter's at Rome, and the

Bishop thereof; the Dauphiness of France (alas, to think that glorious

head should ever have been brought so low!) at Paris; and the rightful

King of England at Florence. I had dipped my gout in a half-dozen baths

and spas, and played cards in a hundred courts, as my Travels in Europe

(which I propose to publish after my completion of the History of the

American War) will testify. [Neither of these two projected works of Sir

George Warrington were brought, as it appears, to a completion.] And,

during our peregrinations, my hypochondria diminished (which plagued me

woefully at home); and my health and spirits visibly improved. Perhaps

it was because she saw the evident benefit I had from excitement and

change, that my wife was reconciled to my continuing to enjoy them; and

though secretly suffering pangs at being away from her nursery and her

eldest boy (for whom she ever has had an absurd infatuation), the

dear hypocrite scarce allowed a look of anxiety to appear on her face;

encouraged me with smiles; professed herself eager to follow me; asked

why it should be a sin in me to covet honour? and, in a word, was ready

to stay, to go, to smile, to be sad; to scale mountains, or to go down

to the sea in ships; to say that cold was pleasant, heat tolerable,

hunger good sport, dirty lodgings delightful; though she is wretched

sailor, very delicate about the little she eats, and an extreme sufferer

both of cold and heat. Hence, as I willed to stay on yet a while on my

native continent, she was certain nothing was so good for me; and when

I was minded to return home--oh, how she brightened, and kissed her

infant, and told him how he should see the beautiful gardens at home,

and Aunt Theo, and grandpapa, and his sister, and Miles. “Miles!” cries

the little parrot, mocking its mother--and crowing; as if there was any

mighty privilege in seeing Mr. Miles, forsooth, who was under Doctor

Sumner's care at Harrow-on-the-Hill, where, to do the gentleman justice,

he showed that he could eat more tarts than any boy in the school, and

took most creditable prizes at football and hare-and-hounds.

CHAPTER XCI. Satis Pugnae

It has always seemed to me (I speak under the correction of military

gentlemen) that the entrenchments of Breed's Hill served the Continental

army throughout the whole of our American war. The slaughter inflicted

upon us from behind those lines was so severe, and the behaviour of the

enemy so resolute, that the British chiefs respected the barricades

of the Americans hereafter; and were they firing from behind a row of

blankets, certain of our generals rather hesitated to force them. In the

affair of the White Plains, when, for a second time, Mr. Washington's

army was quite at the mercy of the victors, we subsequently heard

that our conquering troops were held back before a barricade actually

composed of cornstalks and straw. Another opportunity was given us, and

lasted during a whole winter, during which the dwindling and dismayed

troops of Congress lay starving and unarmed under our grasp, and the

magnanimous Mr. Howe left the famous camp of Valley Forge untouched,

whilst his great, brave, and perfectly appointed army fiddled and

gambled and feasted in Philadelphia. And, by Byng's countrymen,

triumphal arches were erected, tournaments were held in pleasant mockery

of the middle ages, and wreaths and garlands offered by beautiful ladies

to this clement chief, with fantastical mottoes and posies announcing

that his laurels should be immortal! Why have my ungrateful countrymen

in America never erected statues to this general? They had not in all

their army an officer who fought their battles better; who enabled them

to retrieve their errors with such adroitness; who took care that their

defeats should be so little hurtful to themselves; and when, in the

course of events, the stronger force naturally got the uppermost, who

showed such an untiring tenderness, patience, and complacency in helping

the poor disabled opponent on to his legs again. Ah! think of eighteen

years before and the fiery young warrior whom England had sent out to

fight her adversary on the American continent. Fancy him for ever pacing

round the defences behind which the foe lies sheltered; by night and by

day alike sleepless and eager; consuming away in his fierce wrath and

longing, and never closing his eye, so intent is it in watching; winding

the track with untiring scent that pants and hungers for blood and

battle; prowling through midnight forests, or climbing silent over

precipices before dawn; and watching till his great heart is almost worn

out, until the foe shows himself at last, when he springs on him and

grapples with him, and, dying, slays him! Think of Wolfe at Quebec,

and hearken to Howe's fiddles as he sits smiling amongst the dancers at

Philadelphia!

A favourite scheme with our ministers at home and some of our generals

in America, was to establish a communication between Canada and New

York, by which means it was hoped New England might be cut off from

the neighbouring colonies, overpowered in detail, and forced into

submission. Burgoyne was entrusted with the conduct of the plan, and he

set forth from Quebec, confidently promising to bring it to a

successful issue. His march began in military state: the trumpets of

his proclamations blew before him; he bade the colonists to remember the

immense power of England; and summoned the misguided rebels to lay down

their arms. He brought with him a formidable English force, an army of

German veterans not less powerful, a dreadful band of Indian warriors,

and a brilliant train of artillery. It was supposed that the people

round his march would rally to the Royal cause and standards. The

Continental force in front of him was small at first, and Washington's

army was weakened by the withdrawal of troops who were hurried forward

to meet this Canadian invasion. A British detachment from New York was

to force its way up the Hudson, sweeping away the enemy on the route,

and make a junction with Burgoyne at Albany. Then was the time when

Washington's weakened army should have been struck too; but a greater

Power willed otherwise: nor am I, for one, even going to regret the

termination of the war. As we look over the game now, how clear seem the

blunders which were made by the losing side! From the beginning to the

end we were for ever arriving too late. Our supplies and reinforcements

from home were too late. Our troops were in difficulty, and our succours

reached them too late. Our fleet appeared off York Town just too

late, after Cornwallis had surrendered. A way of escape was opened

to Burgoyne, but he resolved upon retreat too late. I have heard

discomfited officers in after days prove infallibly how a different wind

would have saved America to us; how we must have destroyed the French

fleet but for a tempest or two; how once, twice, thrice, but for

nightfall, Mr. Washington and his army were in our power. Who has not

speculated, in the course of his reading of history, upon the “Has been”

and the “Might have been” in the world? I take my tattered old map-book

from the shelf, and see the board on which the great contest was played;

I wonder at the curious chances which lost it: and, putting aside any

idle talk about the respective bravery of the two nations, can't but see

that we had the best cards, and that we lost the game.

I own the sport had a considerable fascination for me, and stirred up

my languid blood. My brother Hal, when settled on his plantation in

Virginia, was perfectly satisfied with the sports and occupations he

found there. The company of the country neighbours sufficed him; he

never tired of looking after his crops and people, taking his fish,

shooting his ducks, hunting in his woods, or enjoying his rubber and

his supper. Happy Hal, in his great barn of a house, under his roomy

porches, his dogs lying round his feet; his friends, the Virginian Will

Wimbles, at free quarters in his mansion; his negroes fat, lazy, and

ragged: his shrewd little wife ruling over them and her husband, who

always obeyed her implicitly when living, and who was pretty speedily

consoled when she died! I say happy, though his lot would have been

intolerable to me: wife, and friends, and plantation, and town life at

Richmond (Richmond succeeded to the honour of being the capital when our

Province became a State). How happy he whose foot fits the shoe which

fortune gives him! My income was five times as great, my house in

England as large, and built of bricks and faced with freestone; my

wife--would I have changed her for any other wife in the world? My

children--well, I am contented with my Lady Warrington's opinion about

them. But with all these plums and peaches and rich fruits out of

Plenty's horn poured into my lap, I fear I have been but an ingrate;

and Hodge, my gatekeeper, who shares his bread and scrap of bacon with

a family as large as his master's, seems to me to enjoy his meal as much

as I do, though Mrs. Molly prepares her best dishes and sweetmeats, and

Mr. Gumbo uncorks the choicest bottle from the cellar. Ah me! sweetmeats

have lost their savour for me, however they may rejoice my young ones

from the nursery, and the perfume of claret palls upon old noses!

Our parson has poured out his sermons many and many a time to me, and

perhaps I did not care for them much when he first broached them. Dost

thou remember, honest friend? (sure he does, for he has repeated the

story over the bottle as many times as his sermons almost, and my Lady

Warrington pretends as if she had never heard it)--I say, Joe Blake,

thou rememberest full well, and with advantages, that October evening

when we scrambled up an embrasure at Fort Clinton and a clubbed musket

would have dashed these valuable brains out, had not Joe's sword whipped

my rebellious countryman through the gizzard. Joe wore a red coat in

those days (the uniform of the brave Sixty-third, whose leader, the bold

Sill, fell pierced with many wounds beside him). He exchanged his red

for black and my pulpit. His doctrines are sound, and his sermons short.

We read the papers together over our wine. Not two months ago we read

our old friend Howe's glorious deed of the first of June. We were told

how the noble Rawdon, who fought with us at Fort Clinton, had joined the

Duke of York: and to-day his Royal Highness is in full retreat before

Pichegru: and he and my son Miles have taken Valenciennes for nothing!

Ah, parson! would you not like to put on your old Sixty-third coat?

(though I doubt Mrs. Blake could never make the buttons and button-holes

meet again over your big body). The boys were acting a play with my

militia sword. Oh, that I were young again, Mr. Blake! that I had not

the gout in my toe; and I would saddle Rosinante and ride back into

the world, and feel the pulses beat again, and play a little of life's

glorious game!

The last “hit” which I saw played, was gallantly won by our side; though

'tis true that even in this parti the Americans won the rubber--our

people gaining only the ground they stood on, and the guns, stores, and

ships which they captured and destroyed, whilst our efforts at rescue

were too late to prevent the catastrophe impending over Burgoyne's

unfortunate army. After one of those delays which always were happening

to retard our plans and weaken the blows which our chiefs intended to

deliver, an expedition was got under weigh from New York at the close

of the month of September, '77; that, could it have but advanced a

fortnight earlier, might have saved the doomed force of Burgoyne. Sed

Dis aliter visum. The delay here was not Sir Henry Clinton's fault, who

could not leave his city unprotected; but the winds and weather which

delayed the arrival of reinforcements which we had long awaited from

England. The fleet which brought them brought us long and fond letters

from home, with the very last news of the children under the care of

their good Aunt Hetty and their grandfather. The mother's heart yearned

towards the absent young ones. She made me no reproaches: but I could

read her importunities in her anxious eyes, her terrors for me, and her

longing for her children. “Why stay longer?” she seemed to say. “You

who have no calling to this war, or to draw the sword against your

countrymen--why continue to imperil your life and my happiness?” I

understood her appeal. We were to enter upon no immediate service of

danger; I told her Sir Henry was only going to accompany the expedition

for a part of the way. I would return with him, the reconnaissance over,

and Christmas, please Heaven, should see our family once more united in

England.

A force of three thousand men, including a couple of slender regiments

of American Loyalists and New York Militia (with which latter my

distinguished relative, Mr. Will Esmond, went as captain), was embarked

at New York, and our armament sailed up the noble Hudson River, that

presents finer aspects than the Rhine in Europe to my mind: nor was

any fire opened upon us from those beetling cliffs and precipitous

“palisades,” as they are called, by which we sailed; the enemy, strange

to say, being for once unaware of the movement we contemplated. Our

first landing was on the Eastern bank, at a place called Verplancks

Point, whence the Congress troops withdrew after a slight resistance,

their leader, the tough old Putnam (so famous during the war) supposing

that our march was to be directed towards the Eastern Highlands, by

which we intended to penetrate to Burgoyne. Putnam fell back to occupy

these passes, a small detachment of ours being sent forward as if in

pursuit, which he imagined was to be followed by the rest of our force.

Meanwhile, before daylight, two thousand men without artillery, were

carried over to Stoney Point on the Western shore, opposite Verplancks,

and under a great hill called the Dunderberg by the old Dutch lords of

the stream, and which hangs precipitously over it. A little stream

at the northern base of this mountain intersects it from the opposite

height on which Fort Clinton stood, named not after our general, but

after one of the two gentlemen of the same name, who were amongst the

oldest and most respected of the provincial gentry of New York, and who

were at this moment actually in command against Sir Henry. On the next

height to Clinton is Fort Montgomery; and behind them rises a hill

called Bear Hill; whilst at the opposite side of the magnificent stream

stands “Saint Antony's Nose,” a prodigious peak indeed, which the Dutch

had quaintly christened.

The attacks on the two forts were almost simultaneous. Half our men were

detached for the assault on Fort Montgomery, under the brave Campbell,

who fell before the rampart. Sir Henry, who would never be out of danger

where he could find it, personally led the remainder, and hoped, he

said, that we should have better luck than before the Sullivan Island. A

path led up to the Dunderberg, so narrow as scarcely to admit three men

abreast, and in utter silence our whole force scaled it, wondering at

every rugged step to meet with no opposition. The enemy had not even

kept a watch on it; nor were we descried until we were descending the

height, at the base of which we easily dispersed a small force sent

hurriedly to oppose us. The firing which here took place rendered all

idea of a surprise impossible. The fort was before us. With such arms

as the troops had in their hands, they had to assault; and silently

and swiftly, in the face of the artillery playing upon them, the troops

ascended the hill. The men had orders on no account to fire. Taking the

colours of the Sixty-third, and bearing them aloft, Sir Henry mounted

with the stormers. The place was so steep that the men pushed each

other over the wall and through the embrasures; and it was there that

Lieutenant Joseph Blake, the father of a certain Joseph Clinton Blake,

who looks with the eyes of affection on a certain young lady, presented

himself to the living of Warrington by saving the life of the unworthy

patron thereof.

About a fourth part of the garrison, as we were told, escaped out of

the fort, the rest being killed or wounded, or remaining our prisoners

within the works. Fort Montgomery was, in like manner, stormed and taken

by our people; and, at night, as we looked down from the heights where

the king's standard had been just planted, we were treated to a splendid

illumination in the river below. Under Fort Montgomery, and stretching

over to that lofty prominence, called Saint Antony's Nose, a boom and

chain had been laid with a vast cost and labour, behind which several

American frigates and galleys were anchored. The fort being taken, these

ships attempted to get up the river in the darkness, out of the reach of

guns which they knew must destroy them in the morning. But the wind was

unfavourable, and escape was found to be impossible. The crews therefore

took to the boats, and so landed, having previously set the ships on

fire with all their sails set; and we beheld these magnificent pyramids

of flame burning up to the heavens and reflected in the waters below,

until, in the midst of prodigious explosions, they sank and disappeared.

On the next day a parlementaire came in from the enemy, to inquire as to

the state of his troops left wounded or prisoners in our hands, and the

Continental officer brought me a note, which gave me a strange shock,

for it showed that in the struggle of the previous evening my brother

had been engaged. It was dated October 7, from Major-General George

Clinton's divisional headquarters, and it stated briefly that “Colonel

H. Warrington, of the Virginia line, hopes that Sir George Warrington

escaped unhurt in the assault of last evening, from which the Colonel

himself was so fortunate as to retire without the least injury.” Never

did I say my prayers more heartily and gratefully than on that night,

devoutly thanking Heaven that my dearest brother was spared, and making

a vow at the same time to withdraw out of the fratricidal contest, into

which I only had entered because Honour and Duty seemed imperatively to

call me.

I own I felt an inexpressible relief when I had come to the resolution

to retire and betake myself to the peaceful shade of my own vines and

fig-trees at home. I longed, however, to see my brother ere I returned,

and asked, and easily obtained an errand to the camp of the American

General Clinton from our own chief. The headquarters of his division

were now some miles up the river, and a boat and a flag of truce quickly

brought me to the point where his out-pickets received me on the shore.

My brother was very soon with me. He had only lately joined General

Clinton's division with letters from headquarters at Philadelphia, and

he chanced to hear, after the attack on Fort Clinton, that I had been

present during the affair. We passed a brief delightful night together:

Mr. Sady, who always followed Hal to the war, cooking a feast in honour

of both his masters. There was but one bed of straw in the hut where we

had quarters, and Hal and I slept on it, side by side, as we had done

when we were boys. We had a hundred things to say regarding past times

and present. His kind heart gladdened when I told him of my resolve to

retire to my acres and to take off the red coat which I wore: he flung

his arms round it. “Praised be God!” said he. “Oh, heavens, George!

think what might have happened had we met in the affair two nights ago!”

And he turned quite pale at the thought. He eased my mind with respect

to our mother. She was a bitter Tory, to be sure, but the Chief had

given special injunctions regarding her safety. “And Fanny” (Hal's

wife) “watches over her, and she is as good as a company!” cried the

enthusiastic husband. “Isn't she clever? Isn't she handsome? Isn't

she good?” cries Hal, never, fortunately, waiting for a reply to these

ardent queries. “And to think that I was nearly marrying Maria once! Oh,

mercy, what an escape I had!” he added. “Hagan prays for the King, every

morning and night, at Castlewood, but they bolt the doors, and nobody

hears. Gracious powers! his wife is sixty if she is a day; and oh,

George! the quantity she drinks is...” But why tell the failings of our

good cousin? I am pleased to think she lived to drink the health of King

George long after his Old Dominion had passed for ever from his sceptre.

The morning came when my brief mission to the camp was ended, and the

truest of friends and fondest of brothers accompanied me to my boat,

which lay waiting at the riverside. We exchanged an embrace at parting,

and his hand held mine yet for a moment ere I stepped into the barge

which bore me rapidly down the stream. “Shall I see thee once more,

dearest and best companion of my youth?” I thought. “Amongst our cold

Englishmen, can I ever hope to meet with a friend like thee? When hadst

thou ever a thought that was not kindly and generous? When a wish, or

a possession, but for me you would sacrifice it? How brave are you,

and how modest; how gentle, and how strong; how simple, unselfish, and

humble; how eager to see others' merit; how diffident of your own!” He

stood on the shore till his figure grew dim before, me. There was that

in my eyes which prevented me from seeing him longer.

Brilliant as Sir Henry's success had been, it was achieved, as usual,

too late: and served but as a small set-off against the disaster of

Burgoyne which ensued immediately, and which our advance was utterly

inadequate to relieve. More than one secret messenger was despatched to

him who never reached him, and of whom we never learned the fate. Of

one wretch who offered to carry intelligence to him, and whom Sir

Henry despatched with a letter of his own, we heard the miserable

doom. Falling in with some of the troops of General George Clinton, who

happened to be in red uniform (part of the prize of a British ship's

cargo, doubtless, which had been taken by American privateers), the spy

thought he was in the English army, and advanced towards the sentries.

He found his mistake too late. His letter was discovered upon him, and

he had to die for bearing it. In ten days after the success at the Forts

occurred the great disaster at Saratoga, of which we carried the dismal

particulars in the fleet which bore us home. I am afraid my wife was

unable to mourn for it. She had her children, her father, her sister to

revisit, and daily and nightly thanks to pay to Heaven that had brought

her husband safe out of danger.

CHAPTER XCII. Under Vine and Fig-Tree

Need I describe, young folks, the delights of the meeting at home,

and the mother's happiness with all her brood once more under her fond

wings? It was wrote in her face, and acknowledged on her knees. Our

house was large enough for all, but Aunt Hetty would not stay in it. She

said, fairly, that to resign her motherhood over the elder children, who

had been hers for nearly three years, cost her too great a pang; and she

could not bear for yet a while to be with them, and to submit to take

only the second place. So she and her father went away to a house at

Bury St. Edmunds, not far from us, where they lived, and where she

spoiled her eldest nephew and niece in private. It was the year after we

came home that Mr. B, the Jamaica planter, died, who left her the half

of his fortune; and then I heard, for the first time, how the worthy

gentleman had been greatly enamoured of her in Jamaica, and, though she

had refused him, had thus shown his constancy to her. Heaven knows how

much property of Aunt Hetty's Monsieur Miles hath already devoured!

the price of his commission and outfit; his gorgeous uniforms; his

play-debts and little transactions in the Minories;--do you think,

sirrah, I do not know what human nature is; what is the cost of

Pall Mall taverns, petits soupers, play even in moderation--at the

Cocoa-Tree; and that a gentleman cannot purchase all these enjoyments

with the five hundred a year which I allow him? Aunt Hetty declares she

has made up her mind to be an old maid. “I made a vow never to marry

until I could find a man as good as my dear father,” she said; “and I

never did, Sir George. No, my dearest Theo, not half as good; and Sir

George may put that in his pipe and smoke it.”

And yet when the good General died (calm, and full of years, and glad to

depart), I think it was my wife who shed the most tears. “I weep because

I think I did not love him enough,” said the tender creature: whereas

Hetty scarce departed from her calm, at least outwardly and before any

of us; talks of him constantly still, as though he were alive; recalls

his merry sayings, his gentle, kind ways with his children (when she

brightens up and looks herself quite a girl again), and sits cheerfully

looking up to the slab in church which records his name and some of his

virtues, and for once tells no lies.

I had fancied, sometimes, that my brother Hal, for whom Hetty had a

juvenile passion, always retained a hold of her heart; and when he came

to see us, ten years ago, I told him of this childish romance of Het's,

with the hope, I own, that he would ask her to replace Mrs. Fanny, who

had been gathered to her fathers, and regarding whom my wife (with

her usual propensity to consider herself a miserable sinner) always

reproached herself, because, forsooth, she did not regret Fanny enough.

Hal, when he came to us, was plunged in grief about her loss; and vowed

that the world did not contain such another woman. Our dear old General,

who was still in life then, took him in and housed him, as he had done

in the happy early days. The women played him the very same tunes which

he had heard when a boy at Oakhurst. Everybody's heart was very soft

with old recollections, and Harry never tired of pouring out his griefs

and his recitals of his wife's virtues to Het, and anon of talking

fondly about his dear Aunt Lambert, whom he loved with all his heart,

and whose praises, you may be sure, were welcome to the faithful old

husband, out of whose thoughts his wife's memory was never, I believe,

absent for any three waking minutes of the day.

General Hal went to Paris as an American General Officer in his blue and

yellow (which Mr. Fox and other gentlemen had brought into fashion here

likewise), and was made much of at Versailles, although he was presented

by Monsieur le Marquis de Lafayette to the Most Christian King and

Queen, who did not love Monsieur le Marquis. And I believe a Marquise

took a fancy to the Virginian General, and would have married him out of

hand, had he not resisted, and fled back to England and Warrington and

Bury again, especially to the latter place, where the folks would listen

to him as he talked about his late wife, with an endless patience and

sympathy. As for us, who had known the poor paragon, we were civil, but

not quite so enthusiastic regarding her, and rather puzzled sometimes to

answer our children's questions about Uncle Hal's angel wife.

The two Generals and myself, and Captain Miles, and Parson Blake (who

was knocked over at Monmouth, the year after I left America, and came

home to change his coat, and take my living), used to fight the battles

of the Revolution over our bottle; and the parson used to cry, “By

Jupiter, General” (he compounded for Jupiter, when he laid down his

military habit), “you are the Tory, and Sir George is the Whig! He is

always finding fault with our leaders, and you are for ever standing

up for them; and when I prayed for the King last Sunday, I heard you

following me quite loud.”

“And so I do, Blake, with all my heart; I can't forget I wore his coat,”

says Hal.

“Ah, if Wolfe had been alive for twenty years more!” says Lambert.

“Ah, sir,” cries Hal, “you should hear the General talk about him!”

“What General?” says I (to vex him).

“My General,” says Hal, standing up, and filling a bumper. “His

Excellency General George Washington!”

“With all my heart,” cry I, but the parson looks as if he did not like

the toast or the claret.

Hal never tired in speaking of his General; and it was on some such

evening of friendly converse, that he told us how he had actually been

in disgrace with this General whom he loved so fondly. Their difference

seems to have been about Monsieur le Marquis de Lafayette before

mentioned, who played such a fine part in history of late, and who hath

so suddenly disappeared out of it. His previous rank in our own service,

and his acknowledged gallantry during the war, ought to have secured

Colonel Warrington's promotion in the Continental army, where a

whipper-snapper like M. de Lafayette had but to arrive and straightway

to be complimented by Congress with the rank of Major-General. Hal,

with the freedom of an old soldier, had expressed himself somewhat

contemptuously regarding some of the appointments made by Congress, with

whom all sorts of miserable intrigues and cabals were set to work by

unscrupulous officers who were greedy of promotion. Mr. Warrington,

imitating perhaps in this the example of his now illustrious friend of

Mount Vernon, affected to make the war en gentilhomme took his pay, to

be sure, but spent it upon comforts and clothing for his men, and as for

rank, declared it was a matter of no earthly concern to him, and that he

would as soon serve as colonel as in any higher grade. No doubt he added

contemptuous remarks regarding certain General Officers of Congress

army, their origin, and the causes of their advancement: notably he

was very angry about the sudden promotion of the young French lad just

named--the Marquis, as they loved to call him--in the Republican army,

and who, by the way, was a prodigious favourite of the Chief himself.

There were not three officers in the whole Continental force (after

poor madcap Lee was taken prisoner and disgraced) who could speak the

Marquis's language, so that Hal could judge the young Major-General

more closely and familiarly than other gentlemen, including the

Commander-in-Chief himself. Mr. Washington good-naturedly rated friend

Hal for being jealous of the beardless commander of Auvergne; was

himself not a little pleased by the filial regard and profound

veneration which the enthusiastic young nobleman always showed for

him; and had, moreover, the very best politic reasons for treating the

Marquis with friendship and favour.

Meanwhile, as it afterwards turned out, the Commander-in-Chief was most

urgently pressing Colonel Warrington's promotion upon Congress; and, as

if his difficulties before the enemy were not enough, he being at this

hard time of winter entrenched at Valley Forge, commanding five or

six thousand men at the most, almost without fire, blankets, food, or

ammunition, in the face of Sir William Howe's army, which was perfectly

appointed, and three times as numerous as his own; as if, I say, this

difficulty was not enough to try him, he had further to encounter

the cowardly distrust of Congress, and insubordination and conspiracy

amongst the officers in his own camp. During the awful winter of '77,

when one blow struck by the sluggard at the head of the British forces

might have ended the war, and all was doubt, confusion, despair in the

opposite camp (save in one indomitable breast alone), my brother had an

interview with the Chief, which he has subsequently described to me,

and of which Hal could never speak without giving way to the deepest

emotion. Mr. Washington had won no such triumph as that which the

dare-devil courage of Arnold and the elegant imbecility of Burgoyne

had procured for Gates and the northern army. Save in one or two minor

encounters, which proved how daring his bravery was, and how unceasing

his watchfulness, General Washington had met with defeat after defeat

from an enemy in all points his superior. The Congress mistrusted

him. Many an officer in his own camp hated him. Those who had been

disappointed in ambition, those who had been detected in peculation,

those whose selfishness or incapacity his honest eyes had spied

out,--were all more, or less in league against him. Gates was the chief

towards whom the malcontents turned. Mr. Gates was the only genius fit

to conduct the war; and with a vaingloriousness, which he afterwards

generously owned, he did not refuse the homage which was paid him.

To show how dreadful were the troubles and anxieties with which General

Washington had to contend, I may mention what at this time was called

the “Conway Cabal.” A certain Irishman--a Chevalier of St. Louis, and an

officer in the French service--arrived in America early in the year '77

in quest of military employment. He was speedily appointed to the rank

of brigadier, and could not be contented, forsooth, without an immediate

promotion to be major-general.

Mr. C. had friends at Congress, who, as the General-in-Chief was

informed, had promised him his speedy promotion. General Washington

remonstrated, representing the injustice of promoting to the highest

rank the youngest brigadier in the service; and whilst the matter was

pending, was put in possession of a letter from Conway to General Gates,

whom he complimented, saying, that “Heaven had been determined to save

America, or a weak general and bad councillors would have ruined it.”

The General enclosed the note to Mr. Conway, without a word of comment;

and Conway offered his resignation, which was refused by Congress,

who appointed him Inspector-General of the army, with the rank of

Major-General.

“And it was at this time,” says Harry (with many passionate exclamations

indicating his rage with himself and his admiration of his leader),

“when, by heavens, the glorious Chief was oppressed by troubles enough

to drive ten thousand men mad--that I must interfere with my jealousies

about the Frenchman! I had not said much, only some nonsense to Greene

and Cadwalader about getting some frogs against the Frenchman came to

dine with us, and having a bagful of Marquises over from Paris, as we

were not able to command ourselves;--but I should have known the Chief's

troubles, and that he had a better head than mine, and might have had

the grace to hold my tongue.

“For a while the General said nothing, but I could remark, by the

coldness of his demeanour, that something had occurred to create a

schism between him and me. Mrs. Washington, who had come to camp, also

saw that something was wrong. Women have artful ways of soothing men and

finding their secrets out. I am not sure that I should have ever tried

to learn the cause of the General's displeasure, for I am as proud as

he is, and besides” (says Hal), “when the Chief is angry, it was not

pleasant coming near him, I can promise you.” My brother was indeed

subjugated by his old friend, and obeyed him and bowed before him as a

boy before a schoolmaster.

“At last,” Hal resumed, “Mrs. Washington found out the mystery.

'Speak to me after dinner, Colonel Hal,' says she. 'Come out to the

parade-ground, before the dining-house, and I will tell you all.' I

left a half-score of general officers and brigadiers drinking round the

General's table, and found Mrs. Washington waiting for me. She then told

me it was the speech I had made about the box of Marquises, with which

the General was offended. 'I should not have heeded it in another,'

he had said, 'but I never thought Harry Warrington would have joined

against me.'

“I had to wait on him for the word that night, and found him alone at

his table. 'Can your Excellency give me five minutes' time?' I said,

with my heart in my mouth. 'Yes, surely, sir,' says he, pointing to the

other chair. 'Will you please to be seated?'

“'It used not always to be Sir and Colonel Warrington, between me and

your Excellency,' I said.

“He said, calmly, 'The times are altered.'

“'Et nos mutamur in illis,' says I. 'Times and people are both changed.'

“'You had some business with me?' he asked.

“'Am I speaking to the Commander-in-Chief or to my old friend?' I asked.

“He looked at me gravely. 'Well,--to both, sir,' he said. 'Pray sit,

Harry.'

“'If to General Washington, I tell his Excellency that I, and many

officers of this army, are not well pleased to see a boy of twenty made

a major-general over us, because he is a Marquis, and because he can't

speak the English language. If I speak to my old friend, I have to say

that he has shown me very little of trust or friendship for the last

few weeks; and that I have no desire to sit at your table, and have

impertinent remarks made by others there, of the way in which his

Excellency turns his back on me.'

“'Which charge shall I take first, Harry?' he asked, turning his chair

away from the table, and crossing his legs as if ready for a talk. 'You

are jealous, as I gather, about the Marquis?'

“'Jealous, sir!' says I. 'An aide-de-camp of Mr. Wolfe is not jealous of

a Jack-a-dandy who, five years ago, was being whipped at school!'

“'You yourself declined higher rank than that which you hold,' says the

Chief, turning a little red.

“'But I never bargained to have a macaroni Marquis to command me!' I

cried. 'I will not, for one, carry the young gentleman's orders; and

since Congress and your Excellency chooses to take your generals out

of the nursery, I shall humbly ask leave to resign, and retire to my

plantation.'

“'Do, Harry; that is true friendship!' says the Chief, with a gentleness

that surprised me. 'Now that your old friend is in a difficulty, 'tis

surely the best time to leave him.'

“'Sir!' says I.

“'Do as so many of the rest are doing, Mr. Warrington. Et tu, Brute,

as the play says. Well, well, Harry! I did not think it of you; but, at

least, you are in the fashion.'

“'You asked which charge you should take first?' I said.

“'Ch, the promotion of the Marquis? I recommended the appointment to

Congress, no doubt; and you and other gentlemen disapprove it.'

“'I have spoken for myself, sir,' says I.

“'If you take me in that tone, Colonel Warrington, I have nothing to

answer!' says the Chief, rising up very fiercely; 'and presume that

I can recommend officers for promotion without asking your previous

sanction.'

“'Being on that tone, sir,' says I, 'let me respectfully offer my

resignation to your Excellency, founding my desire to resign upon the

fact, that Congress, at your Excellency's recommendation, offers its

highest commands to boys of twenty, who are scarcely even acquainted

with our language.' And I rise up and make his Excellency a bow.

“'Great heavens, Harry!' he cries--(about this Marquis's appointment he

was beaten, that was the fact, and he could not reply to me), 'can't you

believe that in this critical time of our affairs, there are reasons why

special favours should be shown to the first Frenchman of distinction

who comes amongst us?'

“'No doubt, sir. If your Excellency acknowledges that Monsieur de

Lafayette's merits have nothing to do with the question.'

“'I acknowledge or deny nothing, sir!' says the General, with a stamp of

his foot, and looking as though he could be terribly angry if he would.

'Am I here to be catechised by you? Stay. Hark, Harry! I speak to you as

a man of the world--nay, as an old friend. This appointment humiliates

you and others, you say? Be it so! Must we not bear humiliation, along

with the other burthens and griefs, for the sake of our country? It is

no more just perhaps that the Marquis should be set over you gentlemen,

than that your Prince Ferdinand or your Prince of Wales at home should

have a command over veterans. But if in appointing this young nobleman

we please a whole nation, and bring ourselves twenty millions of allies,

will you and other gentlemen sulk because we do him honour? 'Tis easy to

sneer at him (though, believe me, the Marquis has many more merits

than you allow him); to my mind it were more generous, as well as more

polite, of Harry Warrington to welcome this stranger for the sake of the

prodigious benefit our country may draw from him--not to laugh at his

peculiarities, but to aid him and help his ignorance by your experience

as an old soldier: that is what I would do--that is the part I expected

of thee--for it is the generous and manly one, Harry: but you choose

to join my enemies, and when I am in trouble you say you will leave me.

That is why I have been hurt: that is why I have been cold. I thought

I might count on your friendship--and--and you can tell whether I was

right or no. I relied on you as on a brother, and you come and tell me

you will resign. Be it so! Being embarked in this contest, by God's will

I will see it to an end. You are not the first, Mr. Warrington, has left

me on the way.'

“He spoke with so much tenderness, and as he spoke his face wore such a

look of unhappiness, that an extreme remorse and pity seized me, and I

called out I know not what incoherent expressions regarding old times,

and vowed that if he would say the word, I never would leave him. You

never loved him, George,” says my brother, turning to me, “but I did

beyond all mortal men; and, though I am not clever like you, I think my

instinct was in the right. He has a greatness not approached by other

men”

“I don't say no, brother,” said I, “now.”

“Greatness, pooh!” says the parson, growling over his wine.

“We walked into Mrs. Washington's tea-room arm-in-arm,” Hal resumed;

“she looked up quite kind, and saw we were friends. 'Is it all over,

Colonel Harry?' she whispered. 'I know he has applied ever so often

about your promotion----'

“'I never will take it,' says I. And that is how I came to do penance,”

says Harry, telling me the story, “with Lafayette the next winter.” (Hal

could imitate the Frenchman very well.) “'I will go weez heem,' says I.

'I know the way to Quebec, and when we are not in action with Sir Guy, I

can hear his Excellency the Major-General say his lesson.' There was no

fight, you know we could get no army to act in Canada, and returned to

headquarters; and what do you think disturbed the Frenchman most? The

idea that people would laugh at him, because his command had come to

nothing. And so they did laugh at him, and almost to his face too, and

who could help it? If our Chief had any weak point it was this Marquis.

“After our little difference we became as great friends as before--if

a man may be said to be friends with a Sovereign Prince, for as such I

somehow could not help regarding the General: and one night, when we

had sate the company out, we talked of old times, and the jolly days of

sport we had together both before and after Braddock's; and that pretty

duel you were near having when we were boys. He laughed about it, and

said he never saw a man look more wicked and more bent on killing than

you did: 'And to do Sir George justice, I think he has hated me ever

since,' says the Chief. 'Ah!' he added, 'an open enemy I can face

readily enough. 'Tis the secret foe who causes the doubt and anguish! We

have sat with more than one at my table to-day, to whom I am obliged to

show a face of civility, whose hands I must take when they are offered,

though I know they are stabbing my reputation, and are eager to pull me

down from my place. You spoke but lately of being humiliated because a

junior was set over you in command. What humiliation is yours compared

to mine, who have to play the farce of welcome to these traitors; who

have to bear the neglect of Congress, and see men who have insulted me

promoted in my own army? If I consulted my own feelings as a man, would

I continue in this command? You know whether my temper is naturally warm

or not, and whether as a private gentleman I should be likely to

suffer such slights and outrages as are put upon me daily; but in the

advancement of the sacred cause in which we are engaged, we have to

endure not only hardship and danger, but calumny and wrong, and may God

give us strength to do our duty!' And then the General showed me

the papers regarding the affair of that fellow Conway, whom Congress

promoted in spite of the intrigue, and down whose black throat John

Cadwalader sent the best ball he ever fired in his life.

“And it was here,” said Hal, concluding his story, “as I looked at the

Chief talking at night in the silence of the camp, and remembered how

lonely he was, what an awful responsibility he carried, how spies and

traitors were eating out of his dish, and an enemy lay in front of him

who might at any time overpower him, that I thought, 'Sure, this is the

greatest man now in the world; and what a wretch I am to think of my

jealousies and annoyances, whilst he is walking serenely under his

immense cares!'”

“We talked but now of Wolfe,” said I. “Here, indeed, is a greater than

Wolfe. To endure is greater than to dare; to tire out hostile fortune;

to be daunted by no difficulty; to keep heart when all have lost it; to

go through intrigue spotless; and to forgo even ambition when the end is

gained--who can say this is not greatness, or show the other Englishman

who has achieved so much?”

“I wonder, Sir George, you did not take Mr. Washington's side, and wear

the blue and buff yourself,” grumbles Parson Blake.

“You and I thought scarlet most becoming to our complexion, Joe Blake!”

says Sir George. “And my wife thinks there would not have been room for

two such great men on one side.”

“Well, at any rate, you were better than that odious, swearing, crazy

General Lee, who was second in command!” cries Lady Warrington. “And I

am certain Mr. Washington never could write poetry and tragedies as you

can! What did the General say about George's tragedies, Harry?”

Harry burst into a roar of laughter (in which, of course, Mr. Miles must

join his uncle).

“Well!” says he, “it's a fact that Hagan read one at my house to the

General and Mrs. Washington and several more, and they all fell sound

asleep!”

“He never liked my husband, that is the truth!” says Theo, tossing up

her head, “and 'tis all the more magnanimous of Sir George to speak so

well of him.”

And then Hal told how, his battles over, his country freed, his great

work of liberation complete, the General laid down his victorious sword,

and met his comrades of the army in a last adieu. The last

British soldier had quitted the shore of the Republic, and the

Commander-in-Chief proposed to leave New York for Annapolis, where

Congress was sitting, and there resign his commission. About noon, on

the 4th December, a barge was in waiting at Whitehall Ferry to convey

him across the Hudson. The chiefs of the army assembled at a tavern near

the ferry, and there the General joined them. Seldom as he showed his

emotion, outwardly, on this day he could not disguise it. He filled a

glass of wine, and said, 'I bid you farewell with a heart full of love

and gratitude, and wish your latter days may be as prosperous and happy

as those past have been glorious and honourable.' Then he drank to them.

'I cannot come to each of you to take my leave,' he said, 'but shall be

obliged if you will each come and shake me by the hand.'

General Knox, who was nearest, came forward, and the Chief, with tears

in his eyes, embraced him. The others came, one by one, to him, and

took their leave without a word. A line of infantry was formed from the

tavern to the ferry, and the General, with his officers following him,

walked silently to the water. He stood up in the barge, taking off his

hat, and waving a farewell. And his comrades remained bareheaded on the

shore till their leader's boat was out of view.

As Harry speaks very low, in the grey of evening, with sometimes a break

in his voice, we all sit touched and silent. Hetty goes up and kisses

her father.

“You tell us of others, General Harry,” she says, passing a handkerchief

across her eyes, “of Marion and Sumpter, of Greene and Wayne, and Rawdon

and Cornwallis, too, but you never mention Colonel Warrington!”

“My dear, he will tell you his story in private!” whispers my wife,

clinging to her sister, “and you can write it for him.”

But it was not to be. My Lady Theo, and her husband too, I own, catching

the infection from her, never would let Harry rest, until we had coaxed,

wheedled, and ordered him to ask Hetty in marriage. He obeyed, and it

was she who now declined. “She had always,” she said, “the truest regard

for him from the dear old times when they had met as almost children

together. But she would never leave her father. When it pleased God to

take him, she hoped she would be too old to think of bearing any other

name but her own. Harry should have her love always as the best of

brothers; and as George and Theo have such a nurseryful of children,”

adds Hester, “we must show our love to them, by saving for the young

ones.” She sent him her answer in writing, leaving home on a visit to

friends at a distance, as though she would have him to understand that

her decision was final. As such Hal received it. He did not break his

heart. Cupid's arrows, ladies, don't bite very deep into the tough skins

of gentlemen of our age; though, to be sure, at the time of which I

write, my brother was still a young man, being little more than fifty.

Aunt Het is now a staid little lady with a voice of which years have

touched the sweet chords, and a head which Time has powdered over with

silver. There are days when she looks surprisingly young and blooming.

Ah me, my dear, it seems but a little while since the hair was golden

brown, and the cheeks as fresh as roses! And then came the bitter blast

of love unrequited which withered them; and that long loneliness of

heart which, they say, follows. Why should Theo and I have been so

happy, and thou so lonely? Why should my meal be garnished with love,

and spread with plenty, while yon solitary outcast shivers at my gate? I

bow my head humbly before the Dispenser of pain and poverty, wealth and

health; I feel sometimes as if, for the prizes which have fallen to the

lot of me unworthy, I did not dare to be grateful. But I hear the voices

of my children in their garden, or look up at their mother from my book,

or perhaps my sick-bed, and my heart fills with instinctive gratitude

towards the bountiful Heaven that has so blest me.

Since my accession to my uncle's title and estate my intercourse with

my good cousin Lord Castlewood had been very rare. I had always supposed

him to be a follower of the winning side in politics, and was not a

little astonished to hear of his sudden appearance in opposition. A

disappointment in respect to a place at court, of which he pretended to

have had some promise, was partly the occasion of his rupture with the

Ministry. It is said that the most August Person in the realm had flatly

refused to receive into the R-y-l Household a nobleman whose character

was so notoriously bad, and whose example (so the August Objector was

pleased to say) would ruin and corrupt any respectable family. I heard

of the Castlewoods during our travels in Europe, and that the mania for

play had again seized upon his lordship. His impaired fortunes having

been retrieved by the prudence of his wife and father-in-law, he had

again begun to dissipate his income at hombre and lansquenet. There

were tales of malpractices in which he had been discovered, and even of

chastisement inflicted upon him by the victims of his unscrupulous

arts. His wife's beauty and freshness faded early; we met but once at

Aix-la-Chapelle, where Lady Castlewood besought my wife to go and

see her, and afflicted Lady Warrington's kind heart by stories of the

neglect and outrage of which her unfortunate husband was guilty. We were

willing to receive these as some excuse and palliation for the unhappy

lady's own conduct. A notorious adventurer, gambler, and spadassin,

calling himself the Chevalier de Barry, and said to be a relative of

the mistress of the French King, but afterwards turning out to be an

Irishman of low extraction, was in constant attendance upon the Earl and

Countess at this time, and conspicuous for the audacity of his lies, the

extravagance of his play, and somewhat mercenary gallantry towards the

other sex, and a ferocious bravo courage, which, however, failed him

on one or two awkward occasions, if common report said true. He

subsequently married, and rendered miserable a lady of title and fortune

in England. The poor little American lady's interested union with Lord

Castlewood was scarcely more happy.

I remember our little Miles's infantile envy being excited by learning

that Lord Castlewood's second son, a child a few months younger than

himself, was already an ensign on the Irish establishment, whose pay the

fond parents regularly drew. This piece of preferment my lord must have

got for his cadet whilst he was on good terms with the Minister, during

which period of favour Will Esmond was also shifted off to New York.

Whilst I was in America myself, we read in an English journal that

Captain Charles Esmond had resigned his commission in his Majesty's

service, as not wishing to take up arms against the countrymen of his

mother, the Countess of Castlewood. “It is the doing of the old fox, Van

den Bosch,” Madam Esmond said; “he wishes to keep his Virginian property

safe, whatever side should win!” I may mention, with respect to this

old worthy, that he continued to reside in England for a while after the

Declaration of Independence, not at all denying his sympathy with the

American cause, but keeping a pretty quiet tongue, and alleging that

such a very old man as himself was past the age of action or mischief,

in which opinion the Government concurred, no doubt, as he was left

quite unmolested. But of a sudden a warrant was out after him, when it

was surprising with what agility he stirred himself, and skipped off to

France, whence he presently embarked upon his return to Virginia.

The old man bore the worst reputation amongst the Loyalists of our

colony; and was nicknamed “Jack the Painter” amongst them, much to

his indignation, after a certain miscreant who was hung in England

for burning naval stores in our ports there. He professed to have

lost prodigious sums at home by the persecution of the Government,

distinguished himself by the loudest patriotism and the most violent

religious outcries in Virginia; where, nevertheless, he was not much

more liked by the Whigs than by the party who still remained faithful

to the Crown. He wondered that such an old Tory as Madam Esmond of

Castlewood was suffered to go at large, and was for ever crying out

against her amongst the gentlemen of the new Assembly, the Governor, and

officers of the State. He and Fanny had high words in Richmond one

day, when she told him he was an old swindler and traitor, and that the

mother of Colonel Henry Warrington, the bosom friend of his Excellency

the Commander-in-Chief, was not to be insulted by such a little

smuggling slave-driver as him! I think it was in the year 1780 an

accident happened, when the old Register Office at Williamsburg was

burned down, in which there was a copy of the formal assignment of the

Virginia property from Francis Lord Castlewood to my grandfather Henry

Esmond, Esquire. “Oh,” says Fanny, “of course this is the work of Jack

the Painter!” And Mr. Van den Bosch was for prosecuting her for libel,

but that Fanny took to her bed at this juncture, and died.

Van den Bosch made contracts with the new Government, and sold them

bargains, as the phrase is. He supplied horses, meat, forage, all of bad

quality; but when Arnold came into Virginia (in the King's service) and

burned right and left, Van den Bosch's stores and tobacco-houses somehow

were spared. Some secret Whigs now took their revenge on the old rascal.

A couple of his ships in James River, his stores, and a quantity of his

cattle in their stalls were roasted amidst a hideous bellowing; and

he got a note, as he was in Arnold's company, saying that friends

had served him as he served others; and containing “Tom the Glazier's

compliments to brother Jack the Painter.” Nobody pitied the old man,

though he went well-nigh mad at his loss. In Arnold's suite came

the Honourable Captain William Esmond, of the New York Loyalists, as

aide-de-camp to the General. When Howe occupied Philadelphia, Will was

said to have made some money keeping a gambling-house with an officer

of the dragoons of Anspach. I know not how he lost it. He could not have

had much when he consented to become an aide-de-camp of Arnold.

Now, the King's officers having reappeared in the province, Madam Esmond

thought fit to open her house at Castlewood and invite them thither--and

actually received Mr. Arnold and his suite. “It is not for me,” she

said, “to refuse my welcome to a man whom my Sovereign has admitted to

grace.” And she threw her house open to him, and treated him with great

though frigid respect whilst he remained in the district. The General

gone, and, his precious aide-de-camp with him, some of the rascals who

followed in their suite remained behind in the house where they had

received so much hospitality, insulted the old lady in her hall,

insulted her people, and finally set fire to the old mansion in a frolic

of drunken fury. Our house at Richmond was not burned, luckily, though

Mr. Arnold had fired the town; and thither the undaunted old lady

proceeded, surrounded by her people, and never swerving in her loyalty,

in spite of her ill-usage. “The Esmonds,” she said, “were accustomed to

Royal ingratitude.”

And now Mr. Van den Bosch, in the name of his grandson and my Lord

Castlewood, in England, set up a claim to our property in Virginia.

He said it was not my lord's intention to disturb Madam Esmond in her

enjoyment of the estate during her life, but that his father, it had

always been understood, had given his kinsman a life-interest in the

place, and only continued it to his daughter out of generosity. Now my

lord proposed that his second son should inhabit Virginia, for which

the young gentleman had always shown the warmest sympathy. The outcry

against Van den Bosch was so great that he would have been tarred and

feathered, had he remained in Virginia. He betook himself to Congress,

represented himself as a martyr ruined in the cause of liberty, and

prayed for compensation for himself and justice for his grandson.

My mother lived long in dreadful apprehension, having in truth a secret,

which she did not like to disclose to any one. Her titles were burned!

the deed of assignment in her own house, the copy in the Registry at

Richmond, had alike been destroyed--by chance? by villainy? who could

say? She did not like to confide this trouble in writing to me.

She opened herself to Hal, after the surrender of York Town, and he

acquainted me with the fact in a letter by a British officer returning

home on his parole. Then I remembered the unlucky words I had let slip

before Will Esmond at the coffee-house at New York; and a part of this

iniquitous scheme broke upon me.

As for Mr. Will: there is a tablet in Castlewood Church, in Hampshire,

inscribed, Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori, and announcing that

“This marble is placed by a mourning brother, to the memory of the

Honourable William Esmond, Esquire, who died in North America, in the

service of his King.” But how? When, towards the end of 1781, a revolt

took place in the Philadelphia Line of the Congress Army, and Sir Henry

Clinton sent out agents to the mutineers, what became of them? The men

took the spies prisoners, and proceeded to judge them, and my brother

(whom they knew and loved, and had often followed under fire), who had

been sent from camp to make terms with the troops, recognised one of the

spies, just as execution was about to be done upon him--and the wretch,

with horrid outcries, grovelling and kneeling at Colonel Warrington's

feet, besought him for mercy, and promised to confess all to him. To

confess what? Harry turned away sick at heart. Will's mother and sister

never knew the truth. They always fancied it was in action he was

killed.

As for my lord earl, whose noble son has been the intendant of an

illustrious Prince, and who has enriched himself at play with his R---l

master: I went to see his lordship when I heard of this astounding

design against our property, and remonstrated with him on the matter.

For myself, as I showed him, I was not concerned, as I had determined

to cede my right to my brother. He received me with perfect courtesy;

smiled when I spoke of my disinterestedness; said he was sure of my

affectionate feelings towards my brother, but what must be his towards

his son? He had always heard from his father: he would take his Bible

oath of that: that, at my mother's death, the property would return to

the head of the family. At the story of the title which Colonel Esmond

had ceded, he shrugged his shoulders, and treated it as a fable. “On

ne fait pas de ces folies la!” says he, offering me snuff, “and your

grandfather was a man of esprit! My little grandmother was eprise of

him: and my father, the most good-natured soul alive, lent them the

Virginian property to get them out of the way! C'etoit un scandale, mon

cher, un joli petit scandale!” Oh, if my mother had but heard him! I

might have been disposed to take a high tone: but he said, with the

utmost good-nature, “My dear Knight, are you going to fight about the

character of our grandmother? Allons donc! Come, I will be fair with

you! We will compromise, if you like, about this Virginian property!”

and his lordship named a sum greater than the actual value of the

estate.

Amazed at the coolness of this worthy, I walked away to my coffee-house,

where, as it happened, an old friend was to dine with me, for whom I

have a sincere regard. I had felt a pang at not being able to give this

gentleman my living of Warrington--on-Waveney, but I could not, as he

himself confessed honestly. His life had been too loose, and his example

in my village could never have been edifying: besides, he would have

died of ennui there, after being accustomed to a town life; and he had

a prospect finally, he told me, of settling himself most comfortably in

London and the church. [He was the second Incumbent of Lady Whittlesea's

Chapel, Mayfair, and married Elizabeth, relict of Hermann Voelcker,

Esq., the eminent brewer.] My guest, I need not say, was my old friend

Sampson, who never failed to dine with me when I came to town, and I

told him of my interview with his old patron.

I could not have lighted upon a better confidant. “Gracious powers!”

says Sampson, “the man's roguery beats all belief! When I was secretary

and factotum at Castlewood, I can take my oath I saw more than once a

copy of the deed of assignment by the late lord to your grandfather:

'In consideration of the love I bear to my kinsman Henry Esmond,

Esq., husband of my dear mother Rachel, Lady Viscountess Dowager of

Castlewood, I, etc.'--so it ran. I know the place where 'tis kept--let

us go thither as fast as horses will carry us to-morrow. There is

somebody there--never mind whom, Sir George--who has an old regard for

me. The papers may be there to this very day, and O Lord, O Lord, but I

shall be thankful if I can in any way show my gratitude to you and your

glorious brother!” His eyes filled with tears. He was an altered man.

At a certain period of the port wine Sampson always alluded with

compunction to his past life, and the change which had taken place in

his conduct since the awful death of his friend Doctor Dodd.

Quick as we were, we did not arrive at Castlewood too soon. I was

looking at the fountain in the court, and listening to that sweet sad

music of its plashing, which my grandfather tells of in his memoires,

and peopling the place with bygone figures, with Beatrix in her beauty;

with my Lord Francis in scarlet, calling to his dogs and mounting

his grey horse; with the young page of old who won the castle and the

heiress--when Sampson comes running down to me with an old volume in

rough calf-bound in his hand, containing drafts of letters, copies

of agreements, and various writings, some by a secretary of my Lord

Francis, some in the slim handwriting of his wife my grandmother, some

bearing the signature of the last lord; and here was a copy of the

assignment sure enough, as it had been sent to my grandfather in

Virginia. “Victoria, Victoria!” cries Sampson, shaking my hand,

embracing everybody. “Here is a guinea for thee, Betty. We'll have a

bowl of punch at the Three Castles to-night!” As we were talking, the

wheels of postchaises were heard, and a couple of carriages drove into

the court containing my lord and a friend, and their servants in the

next vehicle. His lordship looked only a little paler than usual at

seeing me.

“What procures me the honour of Sir George Warrington's visit, and

pray, Mr. Sampson, what do you do here?” says my lord. I think he had

forgotten the existence of this book, or had never seen it; and when he

offered to take his Bible oath of what he had heard from his father, had

simply volunteered a perjury.

I was shaking hands with his companion, a nobleman with whom I had had

the honour to serve in America. “I came,” I said, “to convince myself of

a fact, about which you were mistaken yesterday; and I find the proof

in your lordship's own house. Your lordship was pleased to take your

lordship's Bible oath, that there was no agreement between your father

and his mother, relative to some property which I hold. When Mr. Sampson

was your lordship's secretary, he perfectly remembered having seen a

copy of such an assignment, and here it is.”

“And do you mean, Sir George Warrington, that unknown to me you have

been visiting my papers?” cries my lord.

“I doubted the correctness of your statement, though backed by your

lordship's Bible oath,” I said with a bow.

“This, sir, is robbery! Give the papers back!” bawled my lord.

“Robbery is a rough word, my lord. Shall I tell the whole story to Lord

Rawdon?”

“What, is it about the Marquisate? Connu, connu, my dear Sir George! We

always called you the Marquis in New York. I don't know who brought the

story from Virginia.”

I never had heard this absurd nickname before, and did not care

to notice it. “My Lord Castlewood,” I said, “not only doubted, but

yesterday laid a claim to my property, taking his Bible oath that----”

Castlewood gave a kind of gasp, and then said, “Great heaven! Do you

mean, Sir George, that there actually is an agreement extant? Yes. Here

it is--my father's handwriting, sure enough! Then the question is clear.

Upon my o----well, upon my honour as a gentleman! I never knew of such

an agreement, and must have been mistaken in what my father said. This

paper clearly shows the property is yours: and not being mine--why, I

wish you joy of it!” and he held out his hand with the blandest smile.

“And how thankful you will be to me, my lord, for having enabled him to

establish the right,” says Sampson, with a leer on his face.

“Thankful? No, confound you. Not in the least!” says my lord. “I am a

plain man; I don't disguise from my cousin that I would rather have

had the property than he. Sir George, you will stay and dine with us.

A large party is coming down here shooting; we ought to have you one of

us!”

“My lord,” said I, buttoning the book under my coat, “I will go and get

this document copied, and then return it to your lordship. As my mother

in Virginia has had her papers burned, she will be put out of much

anxiety by having this assignment safely lodged.”

“What, have Madam Esmond's papers been burned? When the deuce was that?”

asks my lord.

“My lord, I wish you a very good afternoon. Come, Sampson, you and I

will go and dine at the Three Castles.” And I turned on my heel, making

a bow to Lord R------, and from that day to this I have never set my

foot within the halls of my ancestors.

Shall I ever see the old mother again, I wonder? She lives in Richmond,

never having rebuilt her house in the country. When Hal was in England,

we sent her pictures of both her sons, painted by the admirable Sir

Joshua Reynolds. We sate to him, the last year Mr. Johnson was alive, I

remember. And the Doctor, peering about the studio, and seeing the image

of Hal in his uniform (the appearance of it caused no little excitement

in those days), asked who was this? and was informed that it was the

famous American General--General Warrington, Sir George's brother.

“General Who?” cries the Doctor, “General Where? Pooh! I don't know such

a service!” and he turned his back and walked out of the premises. My

worship is painted in scarlet, and we have replicas of both performances

at home. But the picture which Captain Miles and the girls declare to be

most like is a family sketch by my ingenious neighbour, Mr. Bunbury, who

has drawn me and my lady with Monsieur Gumbo following us, and written

under the piece, “SIR GEORGE, MY LADY, AND THEIR MASTER.”

Here my master comes; he has poked out all the house-fires, has looked

to all the bolts, has ordered the whole male and female crew to their

chambers; and begins to blow my candles out, and says, “Time, Sir

George, to go to bed! Twelve o'clock!”

“Bless me! So indeed it is.” And I close my book, and go to my rest,

with a blessing on those now around me asleep.

THE END

End of Project Gutenberg's The Virginians, by William Makepeace Thackeray