SOUTH AFRICA.
Judith, Queen of Abyssinia--Workite and Mastrat, Gallas
Queens--Shinga, Queen of Congo--Mussasa, Queen of
Matamba--Tembandumba, Queen of the Jagas--Amazons in Dahomey 185
[Illustration]
FEMALE WARRIORS.
I.
Captain Bodeaux, Female Officer in the French
Army.--Christian Davies, _alias_ Mother Ross.--Female
Soldier in the 20th Foot.--Women of Barcelona.--Hannah
Snell, Private in the Line and Marines.--Phœbe Hessel,
Private in the 5th Regiment.--Paul Daniel, a Female
Recruit.--Hannah Whitney and Anne Chamberlayne, Female
Sailors.--Mary Ralphson.--"Pretty Polly Oliver."--Miss
Jenny Cameron.--Anne Sophia Detzliffin, Prussian Female
Soldier.--Madame de Drucourt (Siege of Louisburg).--Madame
Ducharmy (Capture of Guadeloupe).--Chevalier d'Eon.--Deborah
Samson, Private, and Molly Macaulay, Sergeant in the
American Revolutionary Army.--Elizabeth Canning.--Catherine
the Second of Russia and the Princess Daschkova.--Doña
Rafaela Mora, Female Captain in the Spanish American Service
(How Nelson Lost an Eye.)--Female Sailor on Board Admiral
Rodney's Ship.
During the eighteenth century there were to be found in nearly
every European army, one or more female soldiers. They sometimes
held commissions as officers, but more frequently served as
non-commissioned officers or privates. Those women and girls who
enlisted in the British Army were generally wives or sweethearts of
soldiers whose regiments had been ordered abroad, and the women,
preferring to encounter the dangers and hardships of a foreign campaign
rather than the miseries of separation, disguised themselves in male
attire and enlisted in some battalion which was embarking for the seat
of war. Sometimes, indeed, women, deserted by their husbands, resolved
to follow their unfaithful spouses all over the world: and, unable to
afford travelling expenses, enlisted at the first recruiting depôt, and
trusted to chance for meeting with or hearing of the object of their
search. As no personal examination of recruits took place in those
days, either in Great Britain or elsewhere, there was no way of finding
out the imposture until afterwards, more especially as the female
soldiers behaved themselves quite as _manly_ as their comrades.
Of course in every country there have been local celebrities whose
names even are unknown beyond the frontiers, for a man or woman must
perform very great deeds to become famous in foreign lands. Thus it
happens, while we are familiar with the names of many an English
female soldier, we know of only two or three women who served during
the last century in the armies of France. Yet the world well knows
that Frenchwomen are second to none in warlike _esprit_. One of these
Gallic warriors was Captain Bodeaux, an officer holding a commission
as lieutenant in one of the regiments which went over to Ireland under
the command of St. Ruth, to assist James the Second. This gallant
officer distinguished herself at the battle of the Boyne, July 1st,
1690, where she met with Mr. Cavanaugh, father of Christian Davies. She
stopped at the house of that gentleman (who was also fighting for King
James) till about three in the morning, when, being alarmed, they fled
together precipitately. Christian Davies describes this officer as "a
very handsome young French gentleman," though the real sex of Bodeaux
was not unknown to her. At the siege of Limerick, June, 1691, she held
Thomond bridge, over the Shannon, with a small body of troops, against
the English, till at last she fell, covered with wounds. Such was the
bravery of this young French officer that her death was lamented even
by the foe. Great was their astonishment when they found their valiant
antagonist was a woman.
* * * * *
The most famous woman who has ever served as a private in any modern
European army, was Christian (or Christiana) Davies, _alias_ Mother
Ross. She was born in 1667, in Dublin, "of parents whose probity
acquired them that respect from their acquaintance which they had no
claim to from their birth." Her father, Mr. Cavanaugh, was a brewer
and maltster, employing upwards of twenty servants, exclusive of those
engaged on his farm at Leslipp, where his wife and daughter resided.
Christiana never liked sedentary work, and in the matter of education
never made much progress. She had barely sufficient patience to learn
reading, and to become a good needle-woman. Open air exercises were her
delight; ploughing, hay-making, using the flail, and, above all, riding
on horseback. "I used," she says, "to get astride upon the horses and
ride them bare-backed about the fields and ditches, by which I once
got a terrible fall and spoiled a gray mare given to my brother by our
grandfather." Mr. Cavanaugh never discovered the offender; but, to
purchase the silence of a cowherd who saw her and the mare fall into a
dry ditch, she was obliged, for a long time, to give him a cup of ale
every night.
In 1685, when the Irish were arming for King James, Mr. Cavanaugh sold
his corn and equipped a troop of horse, with which he joined that
monarch. After enduring great hardships he was dangerously wounded at
the battle of Aughrim, June 12th, 1691, and died a few days after. His
property was confiscated by Government.
Previous to this, shortly after the departure of Mr. Cavanaugh from
home, the Roman Catholic inhabitants of Leslipp blocked up the door of
the parish church during divine service, with logs of wood, butchers'
blocks, and any other heavy articles which came to hand. Christiana
was at home when this occurred; but her mother being, with others,
blockaded in the sacred edifice, she seized up a spit and ran to the
rescue. Being resisted by a sergeant, she thrust the spit through
his leg; then removing the things which blocked up the door, set the
congregation free. Christiana was arrested for wounding the sergeant,
but was afterwards liberated.
After the death of her father, Christian went on a visit to her aunt,
the landlady of a public-house in Dublin, who, at her death, left
the establishment to her niece. The latter married Richard Welsh, a
good-looking young fellow who acted as barman and general assistant.
After two boys had been born, her happiness was suddenly blighted by
the mysterious disappearance of Richard, of whom nothing was heard for
several months. At last, when she had given him up for dead, a letter
arrived (the _twelfth_ he had written) telling her how, on the day of
his disappearance, he had been invited by an old friend on board a
transport with recruits on board; the vessel set sail, and they had
reached Helvoet Sluys before he could get ashore. Having no way of
getting back to Ireland, he enlisted in a foot-regiment.
Christian resolved to follow her husband to Flanders. Letting the
public-house, leaving her furniture with different friends, and placing
one child with her grandmother and the other with a nurse, she dressed
herself in a suit of her husband's clothes, cut her hair short, and
went to the "Golden Last," where Ensign Laurence told the new recruit
that she was "a clever, brisk young fellow," and enrolled her, under
the name of Christopher Welsh, in the Marquis de Pisare's regiment of
foot.
The recruits were disembarked at Williamstadt, in Holland. Thence they
marched to Gorkhum, where they received their uniforms; and the next
day they advanced to Landen, which they reached a day or two before the
great battle of July 19th, 1693. Here they were incorporated into their
respective battalions. Christian found the drill very easy, "having
been accustomed," as she says, "to soldiers, when a girl, and delighted
with seeing them exercise. I very soon was perfect," she adds, "and
applauded by my officers for my dexterity in going through it."
The same night that she arrived at Landen, being on night-guard at the
door of the Elector of Hanover (afterwards George I.), Christian was
wounded by a musket-ball which grazed her leg, barely missing the bone.
She was thus laid up for two months.
During the summer of 1694, Christian being out with a foraging party,
was made prisoner, and brought, together with three-score English and
Dutch, to St. Germain-en-Laye. When the ex-Queen of England heard
that Christian and her companions were English soldiers, she ordered
that each man should have a pound of bread, a pint of wine, and five
farthings each per diem, with clean straw every night. But the Dutch
prisoners were not allowed these luxuries. The Duke of Berwick, a
Marshal of France, visited the prison, and tried to persuade the
British to follow his example and enter the service of the Grand
Monarque. The chief annoyance which Christian suffered was the fear of
being recognised by her cousin, Captain Cavanaugh, a French officer,
who visited the prison nearly every day.
About nine days later, the English prisoners were exchanged, and
on being set free they waited upon the Queen to thank her for her
kindness. Her regiment passed the winter of 1694-5 in Gorkhum, where
Christian passed her time "very merrily" by making love to the young
and pretty daughter of a wealthy burgher. After a few weeks' courtship
"the poor girl grew absolutely fond" of her military wooer. This
_harmless frolic_ led to a duel between Private Welsh and a sergeant
of the regiment who wished to engage the girl's affections. Having
dangerously wounded the sergeant, Christian was ordered under arrest;
but the old father, who was in ignorance of the real state of the case,
exerted his influence with the authorities, and procured her discharge
from the regiment.
Bidding farewell to the girl, under pretence of going to purchase a
commission, Christian enlisted in the 6th Dragoons, commanded by Lord
John Hayes, and served all through the campaign of 1695, including the
siege of Namur. Nothing remarkable happened to her till the Peace of
Ryswick, Sept. 20th, 1697, when she was discharged, and went home to
Ireland. None of her friends recognised the stalwart dragoon as being
identical with Mrs Welsh; so, in place of claiming her property she
found other means of support, until the War of the Spanish Succession
broke out, in 1701. Returning to Holland, Christian re-enlisted in the
6th Dragoons.
She served through the campaigns of 1701-2, under the Duke of
Marlborough, without being wounded. She was one of the captors of
Venlo, Sept. 23rd, 1702, which proved a profitable investment for the
English, for they found more than thirty pieces of cannon, twenty
thousand florins, and a quantity of plate and jewellery. Christian
complains that, the Grenadiers having the start of the Dragoons, she
"got very little of the plunder." "I got, however," she confesses, "a
large silver chalice and some other pieces of plate," which prize was
sufficient to console her.
The Dragoons wintered at Venlo, and a night or two after their arrival
she was ordered, with others, to escort the Duke of Marlborough along
the banks of the Meuse. "During our march," says Christian, "by the
darkness of the night we mistook our way, and going up the country
fell in with a hogstye where was a sow with five pigs, one of which I
made bold with. I was possessed of it some time," she adds, "when one
Taylor, a corporal belonging to Brigadier Panton's Regiment of Horse,
attempted to spoil me of my booty, whereupon some words arising, he
drew, and made a stroke at my head, which I warding with my hand, had
the sinew of my little finger cut in two; at the same time, with the
butt-end of my pistol I struck out one of his eyes." Pretty discipline
for British soldiers!
After serving all through the campaign of 1703, including the battle
of Eckeren, and the sieges of Bonn and Lembourg, she was wounded in
the hip at the battle of Donawert, July 2nd, 1704. The musket-ball
lodged so firmly in the bone that the efforts of three surgeons in the
hospital near Schellenberg were insufficient to extract it. Christian
with difficulty warded off the discovery of her sex.
She left hospital just in time to assist in plundering the Bavarians.
"We spared nothing," says she; "burning or otherwise destroying
whatever we could not carry off. The bells of the churches we broke to
pieces that we might bring them away with us. I filled three bed-ticks,
after having emptied them of the feathers, with bell-metal, men's and
women's clothes, some velvets, and about one hundred Dutch caps which I
had plundered from a shop." Besides these things she got several pieces
of plate, as spoons, mugs, cups, etc.
After the battle of Blenheim, August 2nd, 1704, in which she was in
the midst of the fight, under the hottest of the fire, Christian
was appointed one of the guard despatched with the prisoners to
Breda. Having halted to refresh themselves with a pint of beer and
a pennyworth of bread each (the prisoners being allowed the same
indulgence), Christian saw the long-lost Richard Welsh, now a sergeant
in the Earl of Orkney's regiment of foot, making love to a Dutch woman.
She abused him heartily at first, but she soon forgave him. It was
agreed that she should remain in the army and pass as his brother. On
her return to her regiment she assisted in the siege of Landau. Nothing
of any consequence happened to her during the campaign of 1705.
On the 23rd of May, 1706, was fought the great battle of Ramilies.
When the French were retreating, Christian, who had fought valiantly
during the engagement, was struck in the head by "an unlucky shell"
fired from a mortar planted on the steeple of the church. Her skull
was fractured, and she was carried to the hospital of Meldré or
Meldret, where her head was trepanned. During a ten weeks' illness the
long-dreaded discovery of her sex was made. The surgeons sent word to
Brigadier Preston that his "pretty Dragoon" was a woman. The Brigadier,
who would at first scarcely believe the news, told Christian that he
had always looked upon her "as the prettiest fellow, and the best man
he had." The story soon spread through the regiment, and Christian was
visited by Lord John Hayes and all her officers and comrades. Lord
John gave strict orders that she should want for nothing, and promised
that her pay as a dragoon should be continued till she had quitted the
hospital.
Of course she could no longer stop in the regiment. "Brigadier Preston"
she says "made me a present of a handsome silk gown; every one of the
officers contributed to furnishing me with whatever was requisite for
the dress of my sex, and dismissed me the service with a handsome
compliment." Her husband having been questioned relative to their
previous acquaintance, it was thought prudent to have them married
again; and this second wedding was celebrated with much solemnity, in
presence of all the officers, "who, everyone, at taking leave, would
kiss the bride, and left me," adds Christian, "a piece of gold, some
four or five, to put me in a way of life."
For a short time she carried on the business of cook to the 6th
Dragoons; but finding the work too heavy, she turned sutler, and was
permitted, as a special favour, to pitch her tent in the front of the
army, the other sutlers being driven to the rear. She spent much time
in marauding; and one day in 1708, being in male garb, she and her
mule were taken prisoner. However, she persuaded the French officer to
let her go. Shortly before this she hired herself as cook to the head
sutler of the British army, Mr. Dupper, who afterwards kept a tavern on
Fish Street Hill, London.
Richard Welsh was slain at the siege of Mons, in September, 1709. Her
grief, she tells us, was something terrible. It was on this occasion
that she first came to be styled Mother Ross. "Captain Ross came by,
who seeing my agony, could not forbear sympathizing with me and dropped
some tears, protesting that the poor woman's grief touched him nearer
than the loss of so many brave men. This confession from the Captain
gave me the nick-name of Mother Ross, by which I became better known
than by that of my husband."
Eleven weeks after the death of Welsh, his sorrowing widow was
persuaded to bestow her hand on Hugh Jones, Grenadier, who was killed
at the siege of St. Venant, 1710. During this and the following year
Christian held the post of under-cook in Lord Stair's kitchen.
On the close of the campaign of 1712 she returned to England, and
called on the Duke of Marlborough; but he, being in disgrace, advised
her to wait on the Duke of Argyle. The latter told Christian to
draw up a petition to the Queen. Her majesty received Mother Ross
very graciously, and gave her an order on the Earl of Oxford for
fifty pounds. But having waited on the Earl several times and seen
neither him nor the money, she petitioned the Queen again. Anne
granted a second order for the same sum, payable this time on Sir
William Windham, and Christian was also put on the pension list for
a shilling a day. Sir William at once paid the fifty pounds; but the
Earl of Oxford, without speaking to Queen Anne, cut down the pension
to five-pence. On the accession of George I., she succeeded in having
it raised again to a shilling; and this pension she retained till her
death.
Immediately after receiving the money, Christian returned to Dublin;
but being unable to recover either her house or furniture, she set up
a beershop. She was keeping herself very comfortably, "till my evil
genius," she laments, "entangled me in a third marriage." This time
the bridegroom was named Davies, and belonged to the Welsh Fusileers.
His regiment was ordered, soon after the marriage, to England;
Christian therefore sold her effects, and returned to London, where she
established a shop in Willow Walk, Tothill Fields, Westminster, for
the sale of strong liquors and farthing pies. This was in 1715. She
prospered so well, that after the return of her husband from Preston
(where he had gone to fight the Pretender), she was able to purchase
his discharge; but "in two days after his arrival in London, being
drunk, he enlisted in the Guards." During the November of this year,
Mother Ross kept a sutler's tent in Hyde Park where the Life and Foot
Guards were encamped.
Her husband was a constant source of trouble and vexation. Some friends
having obtained his discharge, he spent her money so fast that she
was obliged to give up, successively, public-houses at Paddington
and in Charles-street, Westminster. She returned to Dublin, when the
Lord-Lieutenant granted her the exclusive privilege of selling beer in
the Phœnix Park on review-days. Tiring of this, in less than a year,
she returned to England; and after living three years in Chester, she
entered Chelsea College as a Pensioner. She also succeeded in obtaining
a sergeantcy in the College for her husband. Here she resided till her
death: being supported by the benevolence of several members of the
nobility--principally officers who had known her as Mother Ross. She
went to Court twice a-week to keep herself in the minds of her patrons;
"but," she laments, "the expense of coach-hire, as both my lameness and
age increases, for I cannot walk ten yards without help, is a terrible
tax upon their charity, and at the same time many of my old friends no
longer going to Court, my former subsistence is greatly diminished from
what it was."
For some months previous to her death Christian Davies's health was
undermined by dropsy, scurvy, and other disorders. But the chief
cause of her last illness was sitting up several nights by the
bed-side of her husband. This brought on a severe cold, which threw
her into a fever, of which she died, July 7th, 1739. She was interred
with military honours in the burial-ground of Chelsea College. Her
autobiography, edited by Daniel Defoe, was published in 1740. A second
edition came out in 1741, with a vignette frontispiece representing
Christian Davies first in her Dragoon's uniform, and then in the dress
of a sutler.
* * * * *
According to the embarkation returns of the 20th Foot, dated 1st July,
1702, preserved among the Harleian MSS. at the British Museum, one of
the soldiers in Captain St. Clair's Company was found to be a woman.
The regiment was embarking to join the expedition against Cadiz.
* * * * *
During the war of the Spanish Succession, Catalonia having declared
against Philip, the French claimant to the crown, was invaded and
ravaged by the forces of Louis Quatorze. Barcelona, the capital, was
invested for several months, and the formidable artillery of France
played, almost unceasingly, on the walls. But the people, nothing
daunted by the arrival of Marshal Berwick with twenty thousand men
to reinforce the besiegers, made a most resolute defence. All who
could bear arms flew to aid in the defence; the priests and the women
enrolled themselves in the ranks, and fought with the same desperate
valour as the rest. Their courage, however, was unavailing; for the
city was taken by assault, Sept. 11th, 1714.
* * * * *
Hannah Snell, another British heroine, was born in Fryer-street,
Winchester, on the 23rd of April, 1723. Military predilections ran in
the family; her grandfather served under King William and the Duke of
Marlborough, and was slain in the battle of Malplaquet. Her father,
however, was a simple dyer and hosier. Hannah was the youngest but one
of a family of three sons and six daughters.
On the death of her father and mother in 1740, Hannah came to London,
and lived for some time in Ship-street, Wapping, in the house of one
of her sisters, Mrs. Gray, whose husband was a carpenter. She had
not resided in the house very long before she became acquainted with
James Summs, a Dutch sailor, whom she married, Jan. 6th, 1743, after a
courtship of about two years. Her marriage was not a happy one. After
squandering the little property belonging to his wife, spending it
in the lowest debauchery, James became heavily involved in debt, and
deserted her altogether. Hannah, left without the means of support, was
obliged to return to the house of her sister, where, two months after,
her child, a girl, was born.
Notwithstanding his vile conduct, Mrs. Summs still dearly loved her
husband; and on the death of her child, she resolved to set out in
search of the truant. Dressing herself in a suit of clothes belonging
to her brother-in-law, which, together with his name, she borrowed,
Hannah left London, Nov. 23rd, 1743, and reached Coventry without
hearing any news of her missing husband. On the 27th of the same month
she enlisted, under the name of James Gray, in General Guise's regiment
of Foot (the 6th, or Royal First Warwickshire). After remaining about
three weeks in the town, during which she made numberless inquiries
about James Summs, Hannah was sent with seventeen comrades to join her
regiment at Carlisle.
She was soon very proficient in the drill; but at the same time she had
the misfortune to incur the enmity of Davis, a sergeant in her company,
who wished to employ the new recruit in a somewhat dishonourable affair
with a girl who lived in Carlisle. Hannah, however, disclosed the real
intentions of the sergeant to the intended victim, and gained the love
of the girl, while she made a bitter enemy of Davis. The latter, from
seeing Hannah and the other very frequently together, grew terribly
jealous; he seized the first opportunity to charge his supposed rival
with neglect of duty. Hannah was sentenced to receive six hundred
lashes. After five hundred had been administered, the officers
interceded, and obtained for her the remission of the other hundred.
The tyranny of Davis soon became unbearable; and, to make matters
worse, a carpenter from Worcester, who had lodged in the house of
Hannah's brother-in-law, enlisted in the regiment, and she was in
constant terror lest he should recognise and betray her. To get away
without the discovery of her sex was now the great object of her
thoughts. She borrowed a small sum of money from the girl in Carlisle,
deserted, and set off on foot for Portsmouth. About a mile from
Carlisle she saw several men and women picking peas; their clothes
lay about, at a short distance, and Hannah very speedily exchanged her
soldier's coat for an old jacket.
At Liverpool she entered a small public-house; and, by affecting to
make love to the landlady, made the landlord so jealous that a match of
"fisticuffs" ensued. Boniface, however, got the worst of it, and was
compelled to keep his bed all next day. Hannah borrowed some money of
the landlady, and made the best of her way to Chester, where she took
genteel lodgings in a private house.
It chanced that a pretty young mantua-maker lodged in the same house.
Hannah contrived to make the acquaintance of the girl, and speedily
won her heart, together with five guineas. The handsome young suitor
levanted to Winchester, where, in an attempt on the heart of a widow,
she met her match. She speedily quitted the town, with only a few
shillings in her pocket.
In about a month from the day she left Carlisle, Hannah reached
Portsmouth, where she enlisted in Colonel Fraser's Regiment of Marines.
With others of her regiment, she embarked, three weeks later, for the
East Indies. The "Swallow" formed part of Admiral Boscawen's fleet.
Hannah soon earned the praises of the officers for her dexterity in
washing, mending, and cooking. Mr. Wyegate, Lieutenant of Marines, was
so greatly interested in the young private, that he invited her to
become one at the officers' mess.
The "Swallow" suffered from some terrible storms, which destroyed
almost all her rigging, and reduced the vessel almost to the condition
of a wreck. It was refitted at Gibraltar; proceeding thence by the Cape
of Good Hope to the Mauritius, which Admiral Boscawen unsuccessfully
attacked. Thence the fleet sailed to Fort St. David on the Coromandel
coast; where the marines being disbanded, joined the British force
encamped before Areacoping. The place surrendered after a siege of
ten days. During the siege Hannah displayed so much courage that she
received the commendations of all her officers.
The British next laid siege to Pondicherry; but after suffering
terrible hardships, they were forced by the rainy season to raise the
siege in eleven weeks. Hannah was one of the first body of British
soldiers who forded the river, breast high, under an incessant fire
from the French batteries. She was also for seven nights successively
on duty in the picket-ground, and worked exceedingly hard for upwards
of fourteen days in the trenches.
She was dangerously wounded in one of the attacks. During this action
she fired thirty-seven rounds, and received in return six shots in her
right leg, five in the left leg, and a dangerous wound in the abdomen;
the last-named being excessively painful. She was terrified lest these
wounds would lead to the discovery of her sex; so in place of letting
the army-surgeons dress all her wounds, she kept silence about the most
dangerous of them, though it was at the risk of her life. Entrusting
the secret to no one but a black woman who waited on her, Hannah
extracted the bullet with her finger and thumb; the negress obtained
lint, salve, and other necessaries for dressing, and the wound was soon
perfectly cured.
Hannah was removed for the cure of her other wounds to the hospital at
Cuddalore; and before her recovery, the greater part of the fleet had
sailed. She was sent on board the "Tartar Pink," and performed all the
regular duties of a sailor, till the return of the fleet from Madras,
when she was turned over to the "Eltham" man-of-war. On board this ship
she sailed to Bombay. The vessel sprang a leak, and they were obliged
to stop here five weeks to repair.
One night the Lieutenant of the "Eltham," who commanded in the absence
of Captain Lloyd, wishing to pass the time agreeably, asked Hannah for
a song. She declined, on the plea of being unwell; but the officer
would take no denial. Hannah became obstinate, but soon she had cause
to regret her folly. Shortly after, she was accused of stealing a
shirt belonging to one of her comrades. The Lieutenant, having a
grudge against Hannah, ordered her to be put in irons; and after five
days' confinement, ordered her to the gangway, where she received five
lashes. The shirt was afterwards found in the box of the very man who
had complained of losing it.
Returning to Fort St. David, the "Eltham" rejoined the squadron,
which departed soon after on its homeward voyage. Hannah was terribly
"chaffed" during the voyage because she had no beard; and she became
known among the sailors by the name of Miss Molly Gray. But in place of
resenting this, Hannah, to show she was as good a man as any of them,
plunged headlong into all the amusements and enjoyments of the others,
and they soon forgot the old nickname, for which they substituted that
of "Hearty Jemmy."
One night, in a house of entertainment at Lisbon, she learned, from an
English sailor who had been in a Dutch ship at Genoa, that James Summs,
her husband, was dead. He had murdered a gentleman of high position in
Genoa, and for this crime he was put into a bag full of stones, and
flung into the sea.
The British fleet arrived at Spithead in 1750. Hannah left the
"Eltham," and came to London, where she was cordially welcomed by her
sister. The strange story of Hannah Snell soon became generally known;
and as she had a good voice, the managers of the Royalty Theatre,
Wellclose Square, engaged her to appear before the footlights as
Bill Bobstay, Firelock, and other military and naval heroes, and to
go through the manual and platoon exercises with a musket. But she
did not long remain on the stage, as, in consideration of the wounds
she received during the siege of Pondicherry, she was put on the
out-pensioners' list at Chelsea Hospital. Her pension was increased
by a special grant to twenty pounds a year, and paid regularly to the
day of her death. With the assistance of some friends she set up a
public-house at Wapping, by which she realized a very good income. On
one side of the sign-board there was painted the figure of a jovial
British tar, on the other a portrait of herself in her marine's
uniform. Underneath the last was inscribed, "The Widow in Masquerade,
or the Female Warrior."
Hannah preferred masculine attire, and continued to wear men's clothes
for the rest of her life. She lived long to enjoy her prosperity; but
during the latter years of her life she became a lunatic, and died, at
the age of sixty-nine, in Bedlam.
* * * * *
Phœbe Hessel (or Hassel) was for many years a private in the 5th
Regiment, and served under the Duke of Cumberland in many engagements,
amongst others the battle of Fontenoy. The fatigues and hardships of
war certainly did not tend to shorten her days. Born during the reign
of Queen Anne, she lived to see the accession of George IV. Indeed, it
was through the liberality of the last-named monarch that Phœbe was
enabled to live comfortably during the latter years of her life. When
the Prince Regent visited Brighton, he saw old Phœbe, who was living
there, maintained by some of the more benevolent inhabitants. Having
heard her strange story, the Prince told some one to ask her what sum
she required to make her comfortable.
"Half-a-guinea a week," replied Phœbe, "will make me as happy as a
princess."
This annuity was, by order of the Prince Regent, paid to her as long as
she lived.
Phœbe Hessel was a woman of good information, and very
communicative. Her stories were always worth hearing. She retained
all her faculties till within a few hours of her death, which took
place Dec. 12th, 1821. She was buried in Brighton Churchyard, and a
tombstone erected over her grave by public subscription. The following
inscription was carved thereon:--
"Sacred to the memory of Phœbe Hessel, born Sept. 1st, 1713. She
served for many years as a private soldier in the 5th regiment, in
different parts of Europe, and in 1745 fought under the Duke of
Cumberland in the battle of Fontenoy, where she received a bayonet
wound in the arm; her long life which commenced in the reign of queen
Anne, induced his present Majesty George IV. to grant her a pension.
She died at Brighton, where she had long resided, Dec. 12th, 1821, aged
108 years."
* * * * *
In August, 1761, as a sergeant was exercising some recruits on board a
transport at Portsmouth, he noticed that one of them, who had enlisted
under the name of Paul Daniel, had a more prominent breast than the
others. When the firing was over, the sergeant sent for Daniel to
the cabin, and told him his suspicion that he was a woman. After
some evasions the recruit confessed her sex; and said that she had a
husband, to whom she was devotedly attached, who, after squandering a
plentiful fortune, had reduced himself and her to beggary, and had then
enlisted. His regiment had been ordered to Germany in 1759 to serve
against the French, and had remained abroad ever since. Not having
heard from him for two years, she had resolved to roam the world in
search of him. She heard that the British Government were sending more
troops to Germany, so she enlisted in one of the regiments ordered
thither, thinking to meet her husband. When the discovery of her sex
frustrated this design, she declared herself to be inconsolable.
* * * * *
In October of the same year, a young woman aged about twenty, attired
in nautical garb, was seized at Plymouth by the Press-gang, and sent
to Captain Toby. On her capture she was placed for safety in the town
jail. Not relishing her imprisonment, she roundly abused Captain Toby,
told him she was a woman, that her name was Hannah Whitney, that she
was born in Ireland, and had served on board several British men-of-war
for upwards of five years. She concluded by informing the astounded
captain that she would never have discovered her sex if they had not
placed her in a common jail. Of course she was immediately released.
* * * * *
There is (or was) a monument in Chelsea church, commemorative of
the masculine courage of Anne Chamberlayne, only daughter of Edward
Chamberlayne, Doctor of Laws. She appears to have been infected with an
ardour for naval glory by her two brothers, who were both distinguished
officers on board men-of-war. Putting on the dress of a sailor, she
joined the crew of a fine ship, commanded by one of her brothers; and
in an engagement with the French, she fought most gallantly for upwards
of six hours.
* * * * *
On the 27th of June, 1808, died at Liverpool Mary Ralphson, a Scottish
heroine. She was born in Lochaber, June 1st, 1698; and married Ralph
Ralphson, then a private in the British army. She followed her husband
in all his campaigns under the Duke of Cumberland, and was present with
him in several famous engagements. On the breaking out of the war in
French Flanders she embarked with the troops, and shared their toils
and vicissitudes. Being present on the field of Dettingen during the
heat of the conflict, surrounded with heaps of the slain, she saw a
wounded dragoon fall dead by her side. She disguised herself in his
clothes, and regained the British camp; then returned with her husband
to England. After this she accompanied him in his later campaigns
under the Duke of Cumberland. She lived to a fine old age, and was
supported during her declining years chiefly by some benevolent ladies
of Liverpool.
There is just a hint of a loyal Jacobite heroine in a curious old
Scotch ballad called "Polly Oliver's Ramble." The song commences:--
"As pretty Polly Oliver lay musing in bed,
A comical fancy came into her head;
Nor father nor mother shall make me false prove,
I'll list for a soldier and follow my love."
There is an old song on the Pretender which appears to be a parody on
this ballad. This begins:--
"As Perkin one morning lay musing in bed,
The thought of three kingdoms ran much in his head."
In June, 1745, Charles Edward Stuart, the young Pretender, landed in
Scotland to assert his father's right to the British crown. He was
joined by most of the Highland chieftains with their clans, and he
sent to all those lairds who had not yet paid their allegiance, to do
so without delay. Lochiel, his lieutenant, wrote to Cameron, the Laird
of Glendessary, commanding him to appear at head-quarters immediately,
with as many of his clan, armed, as he could muster in so short a
notice.
The laird was a minor, and, moreover, a youth of little capacity; so
his aunt, Miss Jenny Cameron, roused the clan to arms, and marched,
at the head of two hundred and fifty claymores, to the camp of Bonnie
Prince Charlie. She rode into camp on a bay gelding decked out in green
trappings, trimmed with gold. She wore a sea-green riding habit with
scarlet lappets edged with gold. Her hair was tied behind in loose
buckles, and covered by a velvet cap with scarlet feathers. In her
hand, in lieu of a whip, she carried a drawn sword.
A female soldier was a sight not to be seen every day. The Prince
immediately quitted the lines to receive her. Miss Jenny rode up to him
without the slightest embarrassment; and giving the military salute,
told him "as her nephew was not able to attend the royal standard,
she had raised men, and now brought them to his highness; that she
believed them ready to hazard their lives in his cause; and that,
although at present they were commanded by a woman, yet she hoped they
had nothing womanish about them; for she found that so glorious a cause
had raised in her own heart every manly thought and quite extinguished
the woman. What effect then must it have on those who have no feminine
fear to combat, and are free from the incumbrance of female dress.
These men," she added, "are yours; they have devoted themselves to your
service, they bring you hearts as well as hands. I can follow them no
farther," she said, "but I shall pray for your success."
The clansmen then passed in review before the prince. When this was
over, he conducted Miss Cameron to his tent, where she was entertained
with the utmost courtesy and hospitality. Prince Charlie gave her the
title of "Colonel Cameron," and by this epithet she was distinguished
for many years.
Miss Jenny remained with the Jacobite army until it invaded England,
and joined it again on its return, in Annandale. She was still in camp
in January, 1746, and fought in the battle of Falkirk on the 23rd;
when she was made prisoner, and lodged in Edinburgh Castle. She was
ultimately set at liberty, and returned to the guardianship of her
weak-minded nephew.
A Highland song was composed in her honour, relating how:
"Miss Jenny Cameron,
She put her belt and hanger on,
And away to the Young Pretender."
Anne Sophia Detzliffin, who served four years in the Prussian army, was
born in 1738 at Treptow on the Rega. In 1757, during the Seven Years'
War, she was excited by a thirst for glory to quit her father's house
and go to Colberg, where she enlisted in Prince Frederic's regiment
of cuirassiers. She remained in this corps for two years, and fought
in several actions; in one of which, near Bamberg, she received a
sabre-wound in her left arm.
She next fought in the battle of Kunnersdorff. Her regiment returned
some days later to Saxony, where Anne fell dangerously ill, and was
sent to the hospital of Meissen. She soon recovered, but having no
opportunity for rejoining her regiment, she enlisted in a battalion
of Grenadiers, which was decimated shortly after in the actions of
Strechlin and Torgau, in 1760. In the latter, fought on Nov. 3rd,
Sophia Detzliffin received two severe wounds on the head, and was
captured by the Austrians, who took her to the hospital at Dresden.
When she had almost recovered, the heroine found means to escape from
the hospital. Passing through the Austrian outposts without being
discovered, she enlisted (in 1761) with Colonel Colignon, who sent her
to a regiment of Le Noble's Volunteers.
After serving in this corps for two months, she was accused on the
14th of July by one of her comrades of robbing him of fourteen-pence.
There was not the slightest foundation for the accusation; but a
subaltern immediately placed her under arrest. Anne was determined not
to submit to such an indignity. Sending for her lieutenant, she told
that she was a female, and declared that during four years' service in
various regiments she had never once been ordered under arrest, nor
even received a blow for neglect of duty. She concluded by telling
the officer that after this insult she would no longer remain in the
army--which was, however, a needless remark, as she would not have been
permitted to stop after her sex was known.
This heroine, when she quitted the army, was twenty-three years old,
with strongly-marked features, and a brown complexion.
* * * * *
On the 8th of June, 1758, General (afterwards Lord) Amherst, with
an army of twelve thousand men, in which General Wolfe served as
a brigadier, landed on the island of Cape-Breton, in Canada, and
commenced the siege of Louisbourg. This town was so strongly fortified
that the French, believing it to be impregnable, left only two
thousand eight hundred men for its defence. The military commander,
the Chevalier de Drucourt, was a brave and resolute soldier, and made
a gallant defence. The British, however, determined to make up for all
their recent disasters, commenced the siege with more than ordinary
vigour and energy. The Chevalier was ably assisted in the defence
by his wife; who, appearing on the walls among the common soldiers,
exhorted them to fight bravely in defence of the town. And not only did
she thus cheer them by encouraging words; she carried round food and
ammunition to the exhausted soldiers, and occasionally took her turn
at the guns, which she loaded and fired with skill and rapidity. But
the efforts of the Chevalier and his wife were of no avail against the
superior numbers of the English. Louisbourg surrendered on the 26th of
June; and the Chevalier and Madame de Drucourt were made prisoners.
However, General Amherst treated his brave captives with the greatest
respect and hospitality.
* * * * *
In 1759, when the British were besieging Guadaloupe, the native
planters were incited to resist the invaders by M. Dutril, the French
Governor. Amongst others, Madame Ducharmy, wife of a planter, armed her
servants and negroes, and led them to an attack on the British forces.
Amongst the celebrities of the eighteenth century, none was more
famous than the Chevalier d'Eon. Even before the strange question as
to his real sex had been raised, the Chevalier was well known in every
European court as a skilful diplomatist and a brave soldier. In 1761,
having attained the summit of his glory in the political world, he
sighed for military renown. As aide-de-camp to Marshal Broglio, he
distinguished himself most highly against the British and Prussians.
Being entrusted with the removal of the military stores from Hoxter,
which the French were evacuating, he passed the Weser with several
boats, under a heavy fire from the enemy, and saved all the baggage.
Shortly after this he was wounded in the head and thigh in a skirmish
at Ultrop.
On the 7th September, at the head of the Grenadiers de Champagne
and the Swiss Guards, the Chevalier attacked a Highland regiment
("Montagnards Ecossais," Broglio styles them in his despatch) near the
village of Meinsloff, and after a slight skirmish, drove them back to
the British camp. At Osterwick, with about fifty dragoons and hussars,
D'Eon charged a Prussian battalion six or seven hundred strong, which
was intercepting the communications of the French with Wolfembutel. The
Prussians, seized with a panic, threw down their arms, and surrendered.
The capture of Wolfembutel by Marshal Saxe was the result of this
brilliant action.
The preliminaries of peace in September, 1762, terminated the
Chevalier's military career, and he returned to the political world,
where he had already made himself so distinguished. He was sent to
London, as Secretary of Legation under the Duc de Nivernois, the
Ambassador-Extraordinary. On the return of the Duc to Paris, the
Chevalier remained in London first as resident, and afterwards as
minister plenipotentiary at the Court of St. James's. At this period
his star was at its zenith. Fortune lavished her favours upon him
with the most profuse liberality. Suddenly the wheel turned; and,
without any reason being assigned, D'Eon was dismissed from all his
appointments, and compelled to reside, disgraced, in London. The French
ministers who had negotiated the peace now effected his ruin. The
treaty had been considered disgraceful to France, both by the king and
the people; and the negotiators, afraid of the Chevalier, who knew too
much, found means to disgrace him. Louis XV., however, settled upon
D'Eon a pension of twelve hundred livres.
During the Chevalier's residence in London, suspicions arose in the
minds of several persons that D'Eon was a disguised woman. The notion
soon reached the Continent; and both in England and abroad, some very
extraordinary wagers were made on the subject. In July, 1777, a trial
took place before Lord Chief Justice Mansfield on an action brought
by a Mr. Hayes against a Mr. Jacques, the latter of whom had received
several premiums of fifteen guineas, to return one hundred whenever it
should be proved, beyond a doubt, that the Chevalier D'Eon was a woman.
MM. Louis Legoux and de Morande deposed to this as a fact so thoroughly
established, that the defendant's counsel actually pleaded that the
wager was unfair, because the plaintiff knew, before it was laid, that
the Court of France had treated with the Chevalier as a woman. The
plaintiff, however, obtained a verdict, which was afterwards set aside
on the ground of the bet being illegal.
Shortly after the conclusion of the trial, the Chevalier d'Eon, for
some unaccountable reason, put on female attire, which he contrived to
wear until his death.
Everybody now believed that D'Eon was a woman. Several portraits were
published representing him in various characters--as an officer of
dragoons, as a French minister, as a fashionable lady, etc. Mr. Hooper,
of Ludgate-hill, published a mezzotinto engraving of the Chevalier
as Pallas, a casque on her head, a lance in her right hand, and the
ægis on her left arm. Round the edge of the shield were the words _At
nunc dura dedit vobis discrimina Pallas_. On each side were drums,
muskets, pyramids of cannon-balls, heavy pieces of ordnance, and a
pair of colours on which were written, _Impavidam serient ruinæ_. In
the middle distance might be seen a citadel and a camp. The lower part
of the engraving contained representations of the principal events
of the Chevalier's life, with a eulogy, in English, on his talents
and virtues. After rapturously praising the genius, the courage, the
personal beauty of D'Eon, this eulogy concludes by saying that "her
military comrades offer this homage as an eternal monument of their
affection."
The breaking out of the French Revolution deprived D'Eon of his
pension. He returned to France in 1792 and offered his services to the
National Assembly. But they were declined; and on his return to England
his name was placed on the list of Emigrants. He was now plunged into
the depths of poverty, and supported himself as best he could by giving
lessons in fencing. But he depended chiefly on the kindness of Elisée,
first surgeon to Louis XVIII., and other friends. He died May the 21st,
1810, when Elisée assisted in the dissection of his body; and declared
that the Chevalier belonged to the male sex.
* * * * *
During the American War of Independence several women donned masculine
attire and enlisted in the Revolutionary Army. One of these heroines
was named Deborah Samson. Born at Plymouth, U.S., of very poor parents,
she was received at an early age into a respectable family, where
the members treated her with great kindness. Her education was at
first totally neglected, though she remedied this, to the best of her
ability, by teaching herself to read and write; later in life she saved
enough to pay for her schooling. In 1778, having dressed herself in
male attire, she enlisted under the name of Robert Shirtliffe for the
whole term of the war.
Deborah was used to all kinds of hardships, so the fatigues incident
to her new life had as little effect on her as on her comrades. Her
courage and obedience to military discipline, soon gained for her
the esteem of the officers. She served as a volunteer in several
expeditions, where her regiment was not engaged, and received two
severe wounds--one in the head, the other in the shoulder. She managed,
however, to avoid the disclosure of her sex.
At last Deborah Samson was seized with a brain fever in Philadelphia.
The physician who attended her made the dreaded discovery, and sent
word to the colonel of her regiment. When her health was restored, the
colonel sent her with a letter to General Washington. Deborah saw that
the truth was known, and it was with great reluctance she obeyed.
Washington read the missive, without speaking a word. When he had
finished, he handed Deborah Samson a discharge in which was enclosed
some money and a letter containing good advice.
Some years after her discharge Deborah married Benjamin Garnett, of
Sharon, Massachusetts. For her services as a revolutionary soldier, she
was presented with a grant of land and a pension for life.
Another American heroine was Molly Macauley, a Pennsylvanian woman, who
rose to the rank of sergeant in the national army, and fought bravely
in several battles and skirmishes. Nobody suspected that she was other
than she seemed to be--a brave, enthusiastic young American patriot.
She was tall and stout, rough-looking, with all the manners of a
soldier. In the enthusiasm of the moment she would swing her sabre over
her head, and hurrah for "Mad Anthony," as General Wayne was styled.
She was wounded at Brandywine, and her sex discovered. She then
returned home.
Another woman, whose name was long remembered in American homes, was
Elizabeth Canning. She was at Fort Washington, her husband was slain,
she took his place at a gun, loading, priming, and firing with good
effect, till she was wounded in the breast by a grape shot.
Besides these examples, many women were frequently detected,
disguised, in the American armies; and as they endured the same
privations, with even less murmuring than the men, there was nothing,
save accident, to reveal their sex. The instances are numerous of women
and girls who aided in the defence of private houses. Their names,
however, have very seldom reached Europe.
* * * * *
When Catherine the Second of Russia was conspiring to dethrone her
husband, Peter III., she based her hopes of success almost entirely on
the belief that the Imperial Guard would declare in her favour. On the
26th of June, 1762, she was seated in her palace at St. Petersburg,
taking a slight repast in company with her early friend and confidant
Catherine Romanowna, Princess of Daschkow, or Daschkova. The latter
was born in 1744, a descendant of the noble family of Woronzoff, and
became a widow at the early age of eighteen. She applied all her
woman's wit to place Catherine on the throne. When their repast was
concluded, Catherine proposed that they should ride at the head of
their troops to Peterhoff; and to make themselves more popular with
the soldiers, the Empress borrowed the uniform of Talitzen, a captain
in the Preobraginsky Guards, while the Princess Daschkova donned the
regimentals of Lieutenant Pouschkin, in which, she says, she looked
"like a boy of fifteen." It chanced by good luck that these uniforms
were the same which had been worn from the time of Peter the Great
until superseded by the Prussian uniform introduced by Peter III.
On the 29th July the Empress and her friend, still in uniform, passed
in review twelve thousand soldiers, besides numberless volunteers. As
Catherine rode along the ranks, amidst the cheers of the soldiers, a
young ensign, observing that she had no tassel on her sword, untied
his own and presented it. Thirty years afterwards, this man died a
field-marshal and a Prince of the Russian Empire. His name was Potemkin.
It is said the Princess (though she makes no mention of it in her
memoirs) requested, as the reward of her services, to be given the
command of the Imperial Guard. The Empress refused; and the Princess,
finding her inflexible, gave up her military aspirations and devoted
herself to study. After her return from abroad in 1782, she was
appointed Director of the Academy of Sciences, and President of the
newly-established Russian Academy. She wrote much in her native tongue;
amongst other works, several comedies. She died at Moscow in 1810.
* * * * *
It is a curious fact that no one has been able to say precisely when
and where Nelson lost his left eye. Some say that the disaster occurred
during the siege of Bastia, in 1793, while others decide that it was
at the siege of Calvi. According to Signor D. Liberato Abarca, general
in the service of the Nicaraguan Republic, both these accounts are
false. He says that it was in the year 1780, when the future "god of
the seas," then a post-captain in the royal navy, was cruising along
the coast of Central America, that he received the wound which added
him to the list of one-eyed warriors. After inflicting every possible
injury on the Spanish colonies, Nelson resolved to take the Castle of
San Carlos de Nicaragua by assault. He rowed up the river of San Juan,
which flows into the Gulf of Mexico, with a flotilla of launches and
other flat-bottomed boats. The Spanish commander was laid up in bed
with a severe illness; and the garrison, terrified at the imposing
preparations of the English sailors, hastily evacuated the fort. Doña
Rafaela Mora, the wife or daughter of the commander, was left alone
in the castle; and with great--what would at first sight appear to be
reckless--daring resolved to drive the enemy from before the place. The
guns were pointed towards the river, and nearly all loaded. Snatching
up a burning match which the terrified soldiers had thrown down in
their hasty retreat, Rafaela fired all the cannons one after another.
One of the balls struck the boat in which Nelson stood; a splinter
from the bulwark hit him in the face, just below the left eye. Such
was the force of the blow, he was knocked down, and rendered perfectly
insensible. This disaster broke up the siege, and the flotilla
descended the stream with all speed.
The heroine received by royal decree the brevet of a captain on active
service, together with a full suit of regimentals, which she was
permitted to wear whenever she pleased. Besides this, a pension was
settled upon her for the rest of her life. General Thomas Martinez,
Director of the Republic of Nicaragua, is a descendant of Doña
Rafaela Mora. General Abarca says the truth of this story is proved
incontestably by documents which he has seen in the archives of the
city of Granada, in Nicaragua.
* * * * *
During a sea-fight between the British and French fleets, Admiral
Rodney observed a woman helping at one of the guns on the main deck of
his ship. He asked her what brought her there?
"An't please your honour," said she, "my husband is sent down to the
cock-pit wounded, and I am here to supply his place. Do you think, your
honour," she added, "I am afraid of the _French_?"
After the battle was over, the Admiral sent for the woman, and told her
that she had been guilty of a breach of discipline in being on board at
all. However, he modified his rebuke by a gift of ten guineas.
[Illustration]
II.
The Furies--Rose Lacombe--Théroigne de Méricourt--Madame
Cochet--Marie Adrian (Siege of Lyons)--Renée
Langevin--Madlle. de la Rochefoucault--Madame Dufief (War
in La Vendée)--Félicité and Théophile de Fernig, Officers
on Dumouriez's Staff--Mary Schelienck--Thérèse Figueur,
French Dragoon--"William Roberts," the Manchester Heroine,
Sergeant in the 15th Light Dragoons and the 37th Foot--Mary
Anne Talbot, Drummer in the 82nd, Cabin Boy on board the
Brunswick, and Middy on board the Vesuvius--Highland
Soldier's Wife at the Storming of New Vigie--Susan
Frost--Peggy Monro (Irish Rebellion)--Martha Glar and other
Swiss Heroines--Queen of Prussia at Jena--Marie Anne Elise
Bonaparte, Princess Bacciochi--Maid of Saragossa--Manuella
Sanchez, Benita, and other Heroines of Saragossa--Spanish
Female Captain--Mrs. Dalbiac (Battle of Salamanca)--Ellenora
Prochaska, Private in Lutzow's Rifle Corps--Augusta
Frederica Krüger, Prussian Soldier--Louise Belletz, French
Artillery Soldier--Mrs. Heald and Mrs. Helm (Chicago
Massacre).
The Furies were the female warriors of the Reign of Terror. When we
think of their ferocious bravery, their barbarous, maniacal cruelty,
the ascendency which they held, even over the great Republican
leaders, their wild cries and still wilder deeds, they seem more like
the weird figures in some hideous German legend than real, living,
sentient women, with human hearts. Women, indeed, they could scarcely
be termed; Amazons they were, as brave and as cruel as those of the
Euxine. Yet, fiends though they appeared, they had often the pangs of
hunger to goad them on; and if cruelty such as theirs _can_ be excused,
starvation is the most reasonable plea that could be advanced.
Though many of the large towns possessed Furies in those days, Paris
was their proper home. There they lived on the sight, the smell,
the taste of human blood. To picture their history rightly, the pen
should be dipped in blood. Blood, since they were denied bread was
all they cared for; and when aristocratic heads grew scarce, these
fiends turned on one another, like famished wolves, to glut their
insatiable thirst. The Guillotine was a central rallying point for the
Furies. Round it they danced and sang by day; its steps formed their
pillow by night. There they crowded together--Tricoteuses, Fileuses,
Poissardes--shouting, gesticulating, screaming the "Marseillaise" or
the "Ça Ira" with their wild, demoniac voices, as they watched the red
cart deposit its living freight at the foot of the National Razor. When
hunger pressed them very sore, they would snatch up swords, pikes,
or scythes, and rush in crowds along the narrow, muddy, ill-paved
streets, beating drums, waving red flags, brandishing their weapons, to
demand bread from those who professed to guide the Republic.
There was always some female leader, brave and eloquent, round whom
the Furies would rally, and who was, if possible, more bloodthirsty,
more ruthless than the rest. The great leaders of the Parisian Women
were Rose Lacombe, the actress, and Théroigne (or Lambertine) de
Méricourt, the Amazon of Liége. These two women, equally beautiful,
equally brave, and equally popular, had wholly different reasons for
plunging into the seething whirlpool of blood. Rose Lacombe (who was
born in 1768, and was therefore past twenty when the Revolution broke
out), appears to have joined in the scenes of atrocity through a love
of excitement, a wish to be a leader, that feeling so natural in the
breast of an actress. She was a wild, excitable girl, and although
not great on the stage, had a certain fiery eloquence, which, though
bombastic, exaggerated, even grotesque, was suited to an audience
chiefly gathered from the Halles. Théroigne de Méricourt, however, had
quite another object in coming forward as a Republican leader; this was
an unquenchable thirst for revenge on the entire aristocracy, to one of
whom she owed the shame of her life.
Théroigne was the daughter of a wealthy farmer in the village of
Méricourt near Liége, and received a finished education. When scarcely
seventeen her excessive beauty attracted the notice of a young Belgian
noble, who owned a château close by her father's home. In those days
of the old _régime_ an aristocrat would never have recovered the
disgrace of marrying a farmer's daughter; so the consequences of their
mutual passion might easily have been foreseen. Deserted by her lover,
Théroigne fled to England, and remained here for some months, in an
agony of shame and grief. When Paris rose against the ill-starred Louis
Seize, she returned to France, and became acquainted with Mirabeau, and
through him she was introduced to to the Abbé Siéyes, Joseph Chénier,
Brissac, Danton, Marat, Robespierre, Camille Desmoulins, Ronsin, Romme,
and others of the Republican party.
Théroigne de Méricourt was barely eighteen in '89, when the first
rumblings of the storm were heard. Plunging headlong into the vortex
of Revolution, she soon acquired for her daring the names of "the
Amazon of Liége" and "the Jeanne d'Arc of the Revolution;" while her
surpassing beauty procured for her the title of "La Belle Liégoise."
Attired in a blood-coloured silk riding-habit, and a hat surmounted
by a magnificent plume of feathers, she made herself conspicuous in
all those deadly conflicts between the People and the Royalists. She
was first amongst the infuriate mob who burst open the gates of the
Invalides and seized the cannon. She was foremost in the storming of
the Bastille, June 14th, 1789; and such was her reckless valour on this
occasion, that the victors, assembling on the spot, voted her a _sabre
d'homme_. Another of the heroines who joined in the attack on the
Bastille, afterwards joined the army, and fought against the enemies of
the Republic, for which she was made Captain of Artillery. Her husband
was a soldier.
On the 5th of October, Théroigne and Rose led eight or ten thousand
starving Parisian Women against Versailles. Previous to this, Rose had
commanded a body of Furies in the attack on the Hôtel de Ville, August
7th. Théroigne rode to Versailles astride on a cannon. By her side came
Cut-Throat Jourdan, the "Man with the Long Beard." The expedition owed
its success almost entirely to the Amazon of Liége. The triumph of the
people was complete. _Le Boulanger, la Boulangère, et le petit Mitron_
were brought to Paris, escorted by a seething, howling mob, preceded
(as a hint to the aristocrats) by two pikes, on which were placed the
heads of two Gardes-du-Corps. Several Poissardes performed the return
journey on the backs of cannon.
For a time the popularity of Théroigne de Méricourt and Rose Lacombe
was unbounded; they were estimated by the Parisians as the first of
their sex. Rose founded a female club on the same plan as the Jacobins,
and became the chief speaker there. Théroigne held a club at her own
house, and frequently spoke at the "Old Cordeliers," of which Danton
and Camille Desmoulins were the leaders. Speaking of the enthusiasm
with which her orations were received, Camille says "Her similes were
drawn from the Bible and Pindar. It was the eloquence of a Judith."
One evening Théroigne proposed that the Temple of the Representatives
of the People should be erected on the site of the Bastille, the scene
of their first triumph.
"To found and embellish this edifice," said she, "let us strip
ourselves of our ornaments, our gold, our jewels. I will be the first
to set the example."
And with these words she tore off all her jewels and flung them on the
table.
Her power increased every day. She was appointed commander of the 3rd
corps of the army of the Fauxbourgs; and so great was her ascendancy
over the mob, that she could by a single word acquit or condemn a
victim. She thus became both feared and hated by the Aristocrats.
One day when she was at the zenith of her power, she recognised her
faithless lover. He sought to avert his impending fate and humbly
implored her forgiveness; but Théroigne had not the generosity to save
him. He perished in the September massacres, 1792.
A fearful doom was reserved for the beautiful and unfortunate Théroigne
de Méricourt. Like Robespierre, she believed that her power was such
that she could at any moment arrest the progress of the Revolution.
Only a few months after the death of her seducer, the very Furies whom
she had commanded, by whom she had been almost worshipped, suspecting
her of being a Girondist, turned against their Amazon leader with
all the fury they had formerly displayed against Marie Antoinette.
They surrounded her on the terrace of the Tuileries, May 31st, 1793,
stripped her naked, and subjected her to a public flogging.
Abandoned and despised by all, the beautiful amazon became a raving
lunatic. Years crept on. The Directory superseded the Convention, the
Consulate the Directory, the Empire the Consulate, and the Restoration
the Empire, and still, in a cold grated cell of the Bicêtre, in Paris,
a gibbering, white-haired, wrinkled hag crawled on all fours to and
from the bars of the window, whence she shrieked forth warlike orations
to phantom meetings of Republicans; again and again calling for the
blood of Suleau, the Royalist author. From the day of her fall till her
death in 1817, she refused to wear clothes. Her only covering was her
long white hair.
Rose Lacombe terminated her career more happily than her
sister-in-arms. True, she also had her downfall, but it did not
terminate so horribly. She fell violently in love with a young nobleman
who was imprisoned in one of the dungeons of the Republic. With her
usual wild impetuosity she tried to save him; but so far from rescuing
him, she very nearly shared his fate. From this day Rose Lacombe's
power was gone. Her voice was no longer listened to as it had once
been. Jacobins and Cordeliers no longer strove to gain her support.
Taking a more sensible view of the matter than one would expect, she
retired from public life, and became a small shopkeeper. In this
capacity she ended her days, selling petty articles over a counter all
day long. The date of her death is unknown.
* * * * *
The citizens of Lyons, unlike those of Paris, were devoted to the Royal
cause. At last the Convention resolved to tolerate this no longer;
and General Kellermann was despatched against the city in August,
1793. The people made a gallant defence; never did the female sex show
greater bravery. The city fell on Oct. 8th; and, furious at having been
resisted, Collot d'Herbois, Couthon, and the other emissaries of the
Convention tried to stamp out the very existence of Lyons. Wholesale
massacres were perpetrated daily; and the friends of liberty were if
possible more enraged against those brave women, who so nobly aided
in the defence, than they were against the male leaders. One of the
most intrepid female soldiers, named Madame Cochet, when she was on
her way to the guillotine, addressed her countrymen from the tumbril,
and upbraided them with their cruelty, and their cowardice in tamely
submitting to the Terrorists. The crowd at first followed in silence;
at last a cry of "Mercy," was heard: but the falling of the National
Razor cut short the appeal.
Another heroine of Lyons was Marie Adrian, a young girl of seventeen,
whose features bore a strange resemblance to Charlotte Corday. She
fought desperately by the side of her brother and her lover in one of
the batteries. After the city had fallen she was made prisoner.
"What is your name?" demanded the judges, struck by her youth and
beauty.
"Marie," she replied. "The name of the mother of that God for whom I am
about to die."
"Your age?"
"Seventeen. The age of Charlotte Corday."
"How could you combat against your country?"
"I fought to defend it."
"Citoyenne," said one of the judges, "we admire your courage. What
would you do if we granted your life?"
"I would poignard you as the murderers of my country," was her daring
reply.
She was, of course, condemned to the guillotine. She ascended the
scaffold in silence, and refused the aid of the executioner. Twice she
cried with a loud, clear voice "Vive le Roi!" After her death a note
was found among her garments; it was the farewell letter of her lover,
who had been shot some days previously in the Plaine des Brotteaux.
This letter was written in blood!
* * * * *
The same loyal, unselfish courage was displayed by the Royalist
insurgents in La Vendée. The rough, yet kind-hearted Chouans form a
striking contrast to the ferocious, bloodthirsty Republicans, far from
advantageous to the latter. There was not one Republican leader who
could bear comparison with the enthusiastic self-sacrificing young
Rochejacquelin, who risked everything for his King.
The most prominent Vendéan leaders, next to Rochejacquelin, were La
Rochefoucault de Beaulieu and the Marquis de Lescure. The former
was one of the first to raise the standard of Louis XVIII. Scarcely
had he called together a few hundred neighbours and their peasant
tenantry when he received a visit from Madlle. de la Rochefoucault, a
near relative, and at this time only eighteen. She was accoutred _en
Amazon_, with a sword by her side and a brace of pistols in her belt.
She presented the troops with embroidered standards, worked by her own
hands, and declared her resolution to fight personally for the royal
cause.
Mademoiselle de la Rochefoucault displayed the greatest possible daring
in the numerous encounters between the contending armies. She was
always the first to advance and the last to retreat. But though she was
so fierce while the battle raged, directly it was over she showed her
kind and humane disposition by the care which she took of the wounded.
She made no distinction between friends and foes; the unfortunate,
whether Royalists or Republicans, were always sure of her sympathy and
assistance.
In the disastrous battle of Chollet, when the superior numbers of
the Republicans spread such confusion through the Chouan ranks,
Mademoiselle de la Rochefoucault rallied her troops three times
successively, and charged the foe. Repulsed a fourth time, she ascended
a slight eminence, and addressed seven hundred of her followers in a
speech well calculated to rouse their sinking energies. Once more she
led them against the foe. This time they returned without her!
But the most famous heroine of this war was Renée Bordereau, commonly
called Langevin, known as the "Military Heroine of La Vendée," who
afterwards wrote and published her autobiography. She was born in June,
1770, at the village of Soulaine, near Angers, of poor, but honest
parents. When the insurrection of 1793 broke out, the Republican troops
ravaged and massacred without mercy throughout La Vendée. It chanced
that forty-two of Renée's relatives fell victims, successively, to this
fury. At last the barbarous murder of her father before her eyes so
transported Renée with rage and a thirst for revenge that she devoted
herself thenceforth to the royal cause.
She bought a light musket with double sights, and learned privately to
load, fire, and aim at a mark. She also practised the military drill;
and when she considered herself sufficiently expert, she procured
a suit of masculine clothes, and joined a corps commanded by M.
Cœur-de-Roi--whose name, by the way, was only a _nom de guerre_.
She enrolled under the name of Hyacinthe, that of her brother, but her
comrades soon gave her the soubriquet of Langevin, a name she never
lost.
During a war of six years, the heroine was engaged in over two hundred
battles and skirmishes. She usually fought on horseback, but sometimes,
to be nearer the foe, she combated on foot. She always solicited to
be placed in the most dangerous posts, and never quitted the field
till compelled by her wounds, or the toils and fatigues of the battle.
Although no one at this time suspected her sex, she was conspicuous
all through the country for her bravery. All the Royalists strove to
emulate her deeds of valour, but none could ever equal her daring. She
had entered on the war with a firm determination to conquer or die, and
her resolution never flagged. Her only ambition, her sole passion, was
to drive the Republicans from France, and restore the legitimate Church
and King.
When Napoleon had subdued La Vendée, he was so afraid of the brave
Langevin that he excepted her from the general amnesty, and set the
price of forty million francs on her head. She was betrayed into the
hands of her enemies; and the Emperor threw her into a loathsome
dungeon, weighting her limbs with iron chains lest she should escape.
She remained in the prison of Angers for three years, and in that of
Mount St. Michael for two, and was fed on nothing save the coarsest
bread, and rainwater which she collected for herself in a basin. Her
piety and fortitude, however, never forsook her during these cruel
hardships. She was at last set free on the Restoration of that King for
whom she had fought so bravely and endured such privations.
The sex of Renée had become known by an accident before her
imprisonment; so it was no surprise, at least to her comrades, when her
autobiography appeared, to learn that she was a woman. In 1816, she was
presented to Louis XVIII.; but what recompense if any, was awarded, her
memoirs do not say. She was still living in 1818.
Madame Dufief, a native of Nantes, was another heroine of this war;
and, in reward she received at the Restoration the Ribbon of the Order
of St. Louis.
* * * * *
The French Revolution, it must be confessed, aroused throughout the
land a feeling of earnest, self-sacrificing patriotism, which no
monarchical government, however popular, had ever called forth. A wild,
enthusiastic desire spread through France to drive the enemies of the
Republic from its sacred soil or perish in the attempt. Young and old
were alike infected with the eager longing to die for the Republic.
"Married men," says Lamartine, "dragged themselves from the arms of
their wives to rush to the altar of their country. Men already advanced
in life, old men, even, still green and robust, came to offer the
remainder of their life to the safety of the Republic. They were seen
tearing off their coats or jackets, before the representatives, and
exposing, naked, their breasts, their shoulders, their arms, their
joints still supple, to prove that they had strength enough to carry
the knapsack and the carbine, and to brave the fatigues of the camp.
Fathers, devoting themselves with their children, themselves offered
their sons to the country, and demanded to be allowed to march with
them. Women, in order to follow their husbands or their lovers, or
themselves seized with that delirium of the country, the most generous
and the most devoted of all passions, divested themselves of the
garments of their sex, put on the uniform of volunteers, and enrolled
themselves in the battalions of their departments."
The greater number of these brave women and girls left their bones
to bleach on the various battle-fields of the Republic without their
sex being ever discovered. Those who became known were but few.
Amongst these latter were the two sisters Félicité and Théophile de
Fernig, who held the nominal rank of orderly officers on the staff of
General Dumouriez, wearing the uniform, and performing all the duties
appertaining to their position. Their father, M. de Fernig, was Captain
of Dumouriez's Guides; while their brother was lieutenant in the
regiment d'Auxerrois. Thus the entire family were fighting in defence
of the Republic.
The De Fernigs were natives of French Flanders, whence they were
driven in August, 1792, by the invading Austrians, who amongst other
atrocities, burnt the house of this family. Having no longer a home,
they joined the army of Dumouriez which arrived shortly after in the
neighbourhood. The girls, whose sex was known to all, when on the march
rode near their father or brother; but during battle they acted as
aide-de-camp to one or other of the French generals.
They entered at once on active service, and marched to the woody
heights of Argonne in Champagne, which General Dumouriez was vainly
endeavouring to hold against the Austrians. On his retreat to St.
Ménéhould the De Fernigs distinguished themselves, September 20th,
during the famous cannonade of Valmy by the Duke of Brunswick; when the
superior skill of Kellermann forced the Allies to retreat.
The Convention, informed of the gallant conduct of the Desmoiselles
de Fernig, sent them horses and arms of honour in the name of the
Republic. Dumouriez, in the camp of Maulde, made a striking example of
these two young girls to inspire his soldiers with courage.
In October, Dumouriez returned to Paris, and formed a plan with the
Executive Council for the winter campaign. On his return to the army
he issued a proclamation calling on the Belgians to rise against their
sovereign; and on the 6th of November, he attacked the Austrian camp
at Jemappes. In this battle, which was perhaps the most hotly contested
of all those fought during the entire war, Félicité, the eldest
girl, acted as aide-de-camp to the Duc de Chartres, afterwards Louis
Philippe, King of the French, while her sister performed the same duty
for the brave veteran, General Ferrand, who stormed the redoubts on the
heights. Both girls were young and exceedingly pretty--Félicité was
scarcely sixteen; and "their modesty, their blushes, and their grace,"
observed Lamartine, "under the uniform of officers of the staff, formed
a contrast to the masculine figures of the warriors who surrounded
them."
Before the battle, while reviewing his troops, Dumouriez pointed out
the heroines to his soldiers "as models of patriotism and auguries of
victory." Throughout the day they were conspicuous for their reckless
bravery, which rendered them of inestimable price in an army composed
of raw soldiers. When the regiments which formed the centre of the
French army gave way before the overwhelming masses of Clerfayt's
cavalry, the Duc de Chartres and his brother, the Duc de Montpensier,
followed by Félicité de Fernig and half-a-dozen aides-de-camp, rode,
sword in hand, through the Austrian hussars which separated him from
the infantry. The latter were restored to their former courage, partly
by the words of the Duc, but more especially by the reproaches of a
fragile girl of sixteen, who, a pistol in each hand and her bridle
between her teeth, accused them bitterly of cowardice in flying from
dangers which she fearlessly braved.
After the battle had raged for several hours the Austrians were driven
from the field. The capture of Mons followed shortly after; and the
French entered Brussels, November 14th, after a series of skirmishes
between their advance-guard and the rear-guard of the Austrians.
During one of these contests, Félicité de Fernig, while bearing the
orders of Dumouriez to the heads of the columns, was surrounded by a
troop of Uhlans, from whom she extricated herself with difficulty.
As she was turning her horse's head to rejoin the column, she saw a
young officer of Belgian Volunteers, who had just been flung from his
horse, by a shot, defending himself desperately against several Uhlans.
Riding hastily to the spot, Félicité with her pistols shot two of his
assailants, and the rest took to flight.
Dismounting from her horse, she confided the care of the wounded
officer to her hussars, and with their assistance conveyed him to the
military hospital of Brussels.
The spring of 1793 saw the popularity of Dumouriez wane rapidly. He was
suspected firstly of Girondism, and, worse again, of wishing to rescue
Louis Capet, the unfortunate ex-King, whose trial was in preparation,
or, some said, he meditated placing Philippe Egalité on the throne. In
addition to all these accusations, he had the misfortune to lose nearly
as many battles as he had previously gained; and, knowing well that
his head was very far from secure on his martial shoulders, he entered
into negotiations with Austria. But he mistook the patriotism of his
soldiers for personal attachment to himself. On the 7th April his army
was in a state of open mutiny; but hoping to set matters right, he set
out for Condé, followed by the Duc de Chartres, Colonel Thouvenet,
Adjutant-General Montjoie, eight hussars of ordnance, and his immediate
staff, including the sisters De Fernig. On the road he met three
battalions of Versailles Volunteers who were marching without orders to
Condé. Dumouriez commanded them to halt; but the Volunteers fired on
his escort. Dumouriez fled amidst a rain of bullets, sprang, on foot,
across a canal which interrupted his flight, and made his escape over
the Dutch marshes.
Théophile de Fernig was not wounded, though her horse was slain.
Félicité dismounted, and gave her steed to the Duc de Chartres. The
two young girls and nearly all their companions reached the opposite
shore of the canal safely; when they dispersed in all directions. The
girls, who were acquainted with the country, guided Dumouriez to the
ferry-boat, in which he, they, and the Duc de Chartres passed the
Scheldt. On landing they returned to the French camp at Maulde; but
very soon the fugitives had to take refuge in the camp of Clerfayt, the
Austrian general, at Tournay.
In those days one star eclipsed another so fast, that the soldiers were
only too ready to forget their former idols. Of course when the troops
could easily forget the general who had first led them to victory, they
could hardly be expected to trouble themselves about two friendless
girls. When Vanderwalen, the young Belgian officer, recovered from
his wounds, he could not banish from his mind the young Amazon who
had saved his life. But neither his brother officers nor the soldiers
could give him any information respecting the De Fernig family.
Vanderwalen left the army, and wandered all over Germany and northern
Europe seeking his preserver. For a long time his search was vain; but
at last, when he had almost given up the search, he found the family
buried in the heart of Denmark.
The sisters had resumed "the dress, the graces, and the modesty" of
their own sex. The love of Vanderwalen was very soon reciprocated; and
they returned, as man and wife, to Belgium. Théophile accompanied her
sister to Brussels; where, after spending a few years in the study
of music and poetry, she died, unmarried. She has left, it is said,
several exquisite poems.
"These two sisters," says Lamartine, "inseparable in life, in death, as
upon the field of battle, repose under the same cypress--in a foreign
land. Where are their names upon the marble monuments of our triumphal
arches? Where are their pictures at Versailles? Where are their statues
upon our frontiers bedewed with their blood?"
* * * * *
Mary Schelienck, or Shellenck, was one of the most remarkable women
whose names occur in the roll-call of warriors. She was a native of
Ghent, but nothing is known of her early youth. In March, 1792, she
entered the Second Belgian Battalion, as a male Volunteer. At the
battle of Jemappes, in the succeeding November, she distinguished
herself by her bravery, and received six wounds. Afterwards she entered
the 30th Demi-Brigade (Batavian), and made the campaigns of Germany.
She was next removed to the 8th Light Infantry, and displayed great
bravery at the battle of Austerlitz. Unfortunately for her, she there
received a severe wound on the thigh, and was left for dead on the
field, which led to her real sex being discovered. In spite of this,
she continued to follow the regiment, and at last presented a petition
with her own hand to Napoleon. The Emperor received her with "marked
distinction:" he invested her with the cross of the Legion of Honour,
giving her the very decoration he had himself worn, and he placed her
tenth on the list of lieutenants. In 1807, Napoleon granted her a
pension of 673 francs (£20). On her return from Italy, Mary Schelienck,
in her military uniform, waited on the Empress Josephine. That imperial
lady, either in kindness or as an ironical compliment, presented her
with a velvet robe. Mary Schelienck's commission of lieutenant, the
decoration of the Legion of Honour, and the velvet robe were afterwards
(1841) in the possession of William Shellenck, cloth merchant of Ghent.
Mary Shelienck died in January, 1841, at Menin, where she was buried.
Her funeral was attended by every member of the Legion of Honour
belonging to the garrison, and an immense concourse of people.
* * * * *
Thérèse Figueur, better known as "Le Dragon sans Gêne," was born,
January, 1774, at Talmay, a town six leagues from Dijon. She became a
dragoon in the 15th and 9th regiments, and, from 1793 to 1812, served
in all the campaigns of the Republic and of the Empire. At this time
she was known to her comrades by the soubriquet of "Sans Gêne."
One day the Comité du Salut Public issued a decree forbidding any woman
to remain in the regiments. The commissioned officers and generals of
the army of the Pyrenees, however, begged that an exception might
be made in favour of the Citoyenne Thérèse Figueur; and special
authorization was granted, permitting her to remain in the service.
At the siege of Toulon, 1793, Thérèse received an English bullet in
her left shoulder. She had the misfortune to be placed under arrest
during the same siege by General Bonaparte, for being guilty of a
delay of twenty-five minutes in the execution of an order. Some years
subsequently, when the former Commandant d'Artillerie had become First
Consul, he wished to see once more the Dragon sans Gêne, who came
willingly enough to St. Cloud under the escort of M. Denon. The First
Consul made some complimentary remarks to the "Dragon," and added that
"Mademoiselle Figueur est un brave:" then gaily pledged her in "a glass
of something stronger than wine."
Thérèse Figueur served in the "Armée d'Italie" in 1792, and in the army
of the Eastern Pyrenees during the 2nd and 3rd year, and in the Army of
Italy during the years 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9. Among her exploits were
several campaigns in Germany, and she took part in the war in Spain. In
July, 1812, she was made prisoner by the Guerillas of the Curé Marino,
and sent off to England, where she remained until the Peace in 1814.
She was frequently wounded, and had horses killed under her. At the
battle of Savigliano, she was wounded four times.
A modest pension hardly sufficed for her simple wants, yet being
very generous, she constantly helped others poorer than herself. In
disposition she was remarkable for piety, delicate tact, singleness of
heart, and self-forgetfulness.
About 1840, Thérèse Figueur, then _veuve_ Sutter, was admitted into
the Hospice des Ménages. In that retreat her last years glided calmly
away, enlivened by the frequent visits of her many faithful friends,
who delighted in hearing her military reminiscences. In June, 1861, her
simple funeral passed from the gates of the Hospice.
* * * * *
During the long wars between England and the French Republic, women
continued to enlist in the British Army. One of the best known
female soldiers of this period was a woman named Roberts, afterwards
styled the "Manchester Heroine" from the place of her death. On the
15th November, 1814, a middle-aged woman applied for relief at the
Church-Warden's offices in Manchester; and on being questioned, it
appeared that she had in days gone by served her King as a soldier. Her
romantic story afterwards appeared, in great detail, in the _Manchester
Herald_.
The father of this heroine, William Roberts, was a bricklayer,
and used to employ his little girl, dressed in boy's clothes, as a
labourer. When she was about fourteen years old, being tall of her
age, Miss Roberts enlisted in the 15th Light Dragoons. In the course
of two months she learned the drill sufficiently for all purposes of
parade; and the rough-riding master told her she was the best rider in
the squad he was teaching. Private William Roberts was promoted in the
course of a few years, first to be a corporal, and then a sergeant;
and at the expiration of her twenty-one years' service, the colonel
tendered her discharge. She demurred accepting it; but being under
size, was, with her own consent, transferred to the 37th foot; which
she joined at the island of St. Vincent, in the West Indies.