I GO ON THE VIGO BAY EXPEDITION, TASTE SALT-WATER AND SMELL POWDER.
The first expedition in which Mr. Esmond had the honor to be engaged,
rather resembled one of the invasions projected by the redoubted Captain
Avory or Captain Kidd, than a war between crowned heads, carried on by
generals of rank and honor. On the 1st day of July, 1702, a great fleet,
of a hundred and fifty sail, set sail from Spithead, under the command
of Admiral Shovell, having on board 12,000 troops, with his Grace the
Duke of Ormond as the Capt.-General of the expedition. One of these
12,000 heroes having never been to sea before, or, at least, only once
in his infancy, when he made the voyage to England from that unknown
country where he was born--one of those 12,000--the junior ensign of
Colonel Quin's regiment of Fusileers--was in a quite unheroic state of
corporal prostration a few hours after sailing; and an enemy, had he
boarded the ship, would have had easy work of him. From Portsmouth
we put into Plymouth, and took in fresh reinforcements. We were off
Finisterre on the 31st of July, so Esmond's table-book informs him: and
on the 8th of August made the rock of Lisbon. By this time the Ensign
was grown as bold as an admiral, and a week afterwards had the fortune
to be under fire for the first time--and under water, too,--his boat
being swamped in the surf in Toros Bay, where the troops landed. The
ducking of his new coat was all the harm the young soldier got in this
expedition, for, indeed, the Spaniards made no stand before our troops,
and were not in strength to do so.
But the campaign, if not very glorious, was very pleasant. New sights of
nature, by sea and land--a life of action, beginning now for the first
time--occupied and excited the young man. The many accidents, and the
routine of shipboard--the military duty--the new acquaintances, both of
his comrades in arms, and of the officers of the fleet--served to cheer
and occupy his mind, and waken it out of that selfish depression into
which his late unhappy fortunes had plunged him. He felt as if the ocean
separated him from his past care, and welcomed the new era of life which
was dawning for him. Wounds heal rapidly in a heart of two-and-twenty;
hopes revive daily; and courage rallies in spite of a man. Perhaps,
as Esmond thought of his late despondency and melancholy, and how
irremediable it had seemed to him, as he lay in his prison a few months
back, he was almost mortified in his secret mind at finding himself so
cheerful.
To see with one's own eyes men and countries, is better than reading all
the books of travel in the world: and it was with extreme delight and
exultation that the young man found himself actually on his grand tour,
and in the view of people and cities which he had read about as a boy.
He beheld war for the first time--the pride, pomp, and circumstance of
it, at least, if not much of the danger. He saw actually, and with
his own eyes, those Spanish cavaliers and ladies whom he had beheld
in imagination in that immortal story of Cervantes, which had been
the delight of his youthful leisure. 'Tis forty years since Mr. Esmond
witnessed those scenes, but they remain as fresh in his memory as on the
day when first he saw them as a young man. A cloud, as of grief, that
had lowered over him, and had wrapped the last years of his life in
gloom, seemed to clear away from Esmond during this fortunate voyage and
campaign. His energies seemed to awaken and to expand under a cheerful
sense of freedom. Was his heart secretly glad to have escaped from that
fond but ignoble bondage at home? Was it that the inferiority to
which the idea of his base birth had compelled him, vanished with the
knowledge of that secret, which though, perforce, kept to himself, was
yet enough to cheer and console him? At any rate, young Esmond of the
army was quite a different being to the sad little dependant of the
kind Castlewood household, and the melancholy student of Trinity Walks;
discontented with his fate, and with the vocation into which that drove
him, and thinking, with a secret indignation, that the cassock and
bands, and the very sacred office with which he had once proposed to
invest himself, were, in fact, but marks of a servitude which was to
continue all his life long. For, disguise it as he might to himself,
he had all along felt that to be Castlewood's chaplain was to be
Castlewood's inferior still, and that his life was but to be a long,
hopeless servitude. So, indeed, he was far from grudging his old friend
Tom Tusher's good fortune (as Tom, no doubt, thought it). Had it been a
mitre and Lambeth which his friends offered him, and not a small living
and a country parsonage, he would have felt as much a slave in one case
as in the other, and was quite happy and thankful to be free.
The bravest man I ever knew in the army, and who had been present in
most of King William's actions, as well as in the campaigns of the great
Duke of Marlborough, could never be got to tell us of any achievement of
his, except that once Prince Eugene ordered him up a tree to reconnoitre
the enemy, which feat he could not achieve on account of the horseman's
boots he wore; and on another day that he was very nearly taken prisoner
because of these jack-boots, which prevented him from running away.
The present narrator shall imitate this laudable reserve, and doth not
intend to dwell upon his military exploits, which were in truth not very
different from those of a thousand other gentlemen. This first campaign
of Mr. Esmond's lasted but a few days; and as a score of books have been
written concerning it, it may be dismissed very briefly here.
When our fleet came within view of Cadiz, our commander sent a boat
with a white flag and a couple of officers to the Governor of Cadiz, Don
Scipio de Brancaccio, with a letter from his Grace, in which he hoped
that as Don Scipio had formerly served with the Austrians against the
French, 'twas to be hoped that his Excellency would now declare himself
against the French King, and for the Austrian in the war between King
Philip and King Charles. But his Excellency, Don Scipio, prepared a
reply, in which he announced that, having served his former king with
honor and fidelity, he hoped to exhibit the same loyalty and devotion
towards his present sovereign, King Philip V.; and by the time this
letter was ready, the two officers had been taken to see the town, and
the alameda, and the theatre, where bull-fights are fought, and the
convents, where the admirable works of Don Bartholomew Murillo inspired
one of them with a great wonder and delight--such as he had never felt
before--concerning this divine art of painting; and these sights over,
and a handsome refection and chocolate being served to the English
gentlemen, they were accompanied back to their shallop with every
courtesy, and were the only two officers of the English army that saw at
that time that famous city.
The general tried the power of another proclamation on the Spaniards, in
which he announced that we only came in the interest of Spain and King
Charles, and for ourselves wanted to make no conquest nor settlement
in Spain at all. But all this eloquence was lost upon the Spaniards, it
would seem: the Captain-General of Andalusia would no more listen to us
than the Governor of Cadiz; and in reply to his Grace's proclamation,
the Marquis of Villadarias fired off another, which those who knew the
Spanish thought rather the best of the two; and of this number was Harry
Esmond, whose kind Jesuit in old days had instructed him, and now had
the honor of translating for his Grace these harmless documents of war.
There was a hard touch for his Grace, and, indeed, for other generals in
her Majesty's service, in the concluding sentence of the Don: “That he
and his council had the generous example of their ancestors to follow,
who had never yet sought their elevation in the blood or in the flight
of their kings. 'Mori pro patria' was his device, which the Duke might
communicate to the Princess who governed England.”
Whether the troops were angry at this repartee or no, 'tis certain
something put them in a fury; for, not being able to get possession of
Cadiz, our people seized upon Port Saint Mary's and sacked it, burning
down the merchants' storehouses, getting drunk with the famous wines
there, pillaging and robbing quiet houses and convents, murdering and
doing worse. And the only blood which Mr. Esmond drew in this shameful
campaign, was the knocking down an English sentinel with a half-pike,
who was offering insult to a poor trembling nun. Is she going to turn
out a beauty? or a princess? or perhaps Esmond's mother that he had lost
and never seen? Alas no, it was but a poor wheezy old dropsical woman,
with a wart upon her nose. But having been early taught a part of the
Roman religion, he never had the horror of it that some Protestants have
shown, and seem to think to be a part of ours.
After the pillage and plunder of St. Mary's and an assault upon a fort
or two, the troops all took shipping, and finished their expedition, at
any rate, more brilliantly than it had begun. Hearing that the French
fleet with a great treasure was in Vigo Bay, our Admirals, Rooke and
Hopson, pursued the enemy thither; the troops landed and carried the
forts that protected the bay, Hopson passing the boom first on board
his ship the “Torbay,” and the rest of the ships, English and Dutch,
following him. Twenty ships were burned or taken in the Port of
Redondilla, and a vast deal more plunder than was ever accounted for;
but poor men before that expedition were rich afterwards, and so often
was it found and remarked that the Vigo officers came home with pockets
full of money, that the notorious Jack Shafto, who made such a figure at
the coffeehouses and gaming-tables in London, and gave out that he had
been a soldier at Vigo, owned, when he was about to be hanged, that
Bagshot Heath had been HIS Vigo, and that he only spoke of La Redondilla
to turn away people's eyes from the real place where the booty lay.
Indeed, Hounslow or Vigo--which matters much? The latter was a bad
business, though Mr. Addison did sing its praises in Latin. That honest
gentleman's muse had an eye to the main chance; and I doubt whether she
saw much inspiration in the losing side.
But though Esmond, for his part, got no share of this fabulous booty,
one great prize which he had out of the campaign was, that excitement of
action and change of scene, which shook off a great deal of his previous
melancholy. He learnt at any rate to bear his fate cheerfully. He
brought back a browned face, a heart resolute enough, and a little
pleasant store of knowledge and observation, from that expedition, which
was over with the autumn, when the troops were back in England again;
and Esmond giving up his post of secretary to General Lumley, whose
command was over, and parting with that officer with many kind
expressions of good will on the General's side, had leave to go to
London, to see if he could push his fortunes any way further, and found
himself once more in his dowager aunt's comfortable quarters at Chelsey,
and in greater favor than ever with the old lady. He propitiated her
with a present of a comb, a fan, and a black mantle, such as the ladies
of Cadiz wear, and which my Lady Viscountess pronounced became her style
of beauty mightily. And she was greatily edified at hearing of that
story of his rescue of the nun, and felt very little doubt but that her
King James's relic, which he had always dutifully worn in his desk, had
kept him out of danger, and averted the shot of the enemy. My lady made
feasts for him, introduced him to more company, and pushed his fortunes
with such enthusiasm and success, that she got a promise of a company
for him through the Lady Marlborough's interest, who was graciously
pleased to accept of a diamond worth a couple of hundred guineas, which
Mr. Esmond was enabled to present to her ladyship through his aunt's
bounty, and who promised that she would take charge of Esmond's fortune.
He had the honor to make his appearance at the Queen's drawing-room
occasionally, and to frequent my Lord Marlborough's levees. That
great man received the young one with very especial favor, so Esmond's
comrades said, and deigned to say that he had received the best reports
of Mr. Esmond, both for courage and ability, whereon you may be sure
the young gentleman made a profound bow, and expressed himself eager to
serve under the most distinguished captain in the world.
Whilst his business was going on thus prosperously, Esmond had his
share of pleasure too, and made his appearance along with other young
gentlemen at the coffee-houses, the theatres, and the Mall. He longed to
hear of his dear mistress and her family: many a time, in the midst of
the gayeties and pleasures of the town, his heart fondly reverted to
them; and often as the young fellows of his society were making merry
at the tavern, and calling toasts (as the fashion of that day was) over
their wine, Esmond thought of persons--of two fair women, whom he had
been used to adore almost, and emptied his glass with a sigh.
By this time the elder Viscountess had grown tired again of the younger,
and whenever she spoke of my lord's widow, 'twas in terms by no means
complimentary towards that poor lady: the younger woman not needing her
protection any longer, the elder abused her. Most of the family quarrels
that I have seen in life (saving always those arising from money
disputes, when a division of twopence halfpenny will often drive the
dearest relatives into war and estrangement,) spring out of jealousy
and envy. Jack and Tom, born of the same family and to the same fortune,
live very cordially together, not until Jack is ruined when Tom deserts
him, but until Tom makes a sudden rise in prosperity, which Jack can't
forgive. Ten times to one 'tis the unprosperous man that is angry, not
the other who is in fault. 'Tis Mrs. Jack, who can only afford a chair,
that sickens at Mrs. Tom's new coach-and-sick, cries out against her
sister's airs, and sets her husband against his brother. 'Tis Jack who
sees his brother shaking hands with a lord (with whom Jack would like
to exchange snuff-boxes himself), that goes home and tells his wife how
poor Tom is spoiled, he fears, and no better than a sneak, parasite, and
beggar on horse back. I remember how furious the coffee-house wits were
with Dick Steele when he set up his coach and fine house in Bloomsbury:
they began to forgive him when the bailiffs were after him, and abused
Mr. Addison for selling Dick's country-house. And yet Dick in the
sponging-house, or Dick in the Park, with his four mares and plated
harness, was exactly the same gentle, kindly, improvident, jovial Dick
Steele: and yet Mr. Addison was perfectly right in getting the money
which was his, and not giving up the amount of his just claim, to
be spent by Dick upon champagne and fiddlers, laced clothes, fine
furniture, and parasites, Jew and Christian, male and female, who clung
to him. As, according to the famous maxim of Monsieur de Rochefoucault,
“in our friends' misfortunes there's something secretly pleasant to us;”
so, on the other hand, their good fortune is disagreeable. If 'tis hard
for a man to bear his own good luck, 'tis harder still for his friends
to bear it for him and but few of them ordinarily can stand that trial:
whereas one of the “precious uses” of adversity is, that it is a great
reconciler; that it brings back averted kindness, disarms animosity, and
causes yesterday's enemy to fling his hatred aside, and hold out a hand
to the fallen friend of old days. There's pity and love, as well as
envy, in the same heart and towards the same person. The rivalry stops
when the competitor tumbles; and, as I view it, we should look at these
agreeable and disagreeable qualities of our humanity humbly alike. They
are consequent and natural, and our kindness and meanness both manly.
So you may either read the sentence, that the elder of Esmond's two
kinswomen pardoned the younger her beauty, when that had lost somewhat
of its freshness, perhaps; and forgot most her grievances against the
other, when the subject of them was no longer prosperous and enviable;
or we may say more benevolently (but the sum comes to the same figures,
worked either way,) that Isabella repented of her unkindness towards
Rachel, when Rachel was unhappy; and, bestirring herself in behalf of
the poor widow and her children, gave them shelter and friendship.
The ladies were quite good friends as long as the weaker one needed a
protector. Before Esmond went away on his first campaign, his mistress
was still on terms of friendship (though a poor little chit, a
woman that had evidently no spirit in her, &c.) with the elder Lady
Castlewood; and Mistress Beatrix was allowed to be a beauty.
But between the first year of Queen Anne's reign, and the second, sad
changes for the worse had taken place in the two younger ladies,
at least in the elder's description of them. Rachel, Viscountess
Castlewood, had no more face than a dumpling, and Mrs. Beatrix was grown
quite coarse, and was losing all her beauty. Little Lord Blandford--(she
never would call him Lord Blandford; his father was Lord Churchill--the
King, whom he betrayed, had made him Lord Churchill, and he was Lord
Churchill still)--might be making eyes at her; but his mother, that
vixen of a Sarah Jennings, would never hear of such a folly. Lady
Marlborough had got her to be a maid of honor at Court to the Princess,
but she would repent of it. The widow Francis (she was but Mrs. Francis
Esmond) was a scheming, artful, heartless hussy. She was spoiling her
brat of a boy, and she would end by marrying her chaplain.
“What, Tusher!” cried Mr. Esmond, feeling a strange pang of rage and
astonishment.
“Yes--Tusher, my maid's son; and who has got all the qualities of
his father the lackey in black, and his accomplished mamma the
waiting-woman,” cries my lady. “What do you suppose that a sentimental
widow, who will live down in that dingy dungeon of a Castlewood, where
she spoils her boy, kills the poor with her drugs, has prayers twice a
day and sees nobody but the chaplain--what do you suppose she can do,
mon Cousin, but let the horrid parson, with his great square toes and
hideous little green eyes, make love to her? Cela c'est vu, mon Cousin.
When I was a girl at Castlewood, all the chaplains fell in love with
me--they've nothing else to do.”
My lady went on with more talk of this kind, though, in truth, Esmond
had no idea of what she said further, so entirely did her first words
occupy his thought. Were they true? Not all, nor half, nor a tenth part
of what the garrulous old woman said, was true. Could this be so? No
ear had Esmond for anything else, though his patroness chatted on for an
hour.
Some young gentlemen of the town, with whom Esmond had made
acquaintance, had promised to present him to that most charming of
actresses, and lively and agreeable of women, Mrs. Bracegirdle, about
whom Harry's old adversary Mohun had drawn swords, a few years before my
poor lord and he fell out. The famous Mr. Congreve had stamped with his
high approval, to the which there was no gainsaying, this delightful
person: and she was acting in Dick Steele's comedies, and finally, and
for twenty-four hours after beholding her, Mr. Esmond felt himself, or
thought himself, to be as violently enamored of this lovely brunette,
as were a thousand other young fellows about the city. To have once seen
her was to long to behold her again; and to be offered the delightful
privilege of her acquaintance, was a pleasure the very idea of which set
the young lieutenant's heart on fire. A man cannot live with comrades
under the tents without finding out that he too is five-and-twenty. A
young fellow cannot be cast down by grief and misfortune ever so severe
but some night he begins to sleep sound, and some day when dinner-time
comes to feel hungry for a beefsteak. Time, youth and good health, new
scenes and the excitement of action and a campaign, had pretty well
brought Esmond's mourning to an end; and his comrades said that Don
Dismal, as they called him, was Don Dismal no more. So when a party was
made to dine at the “Rose,” and go to the playhouse afterward, Esmond
was as pleased as another to take his share of the bottle and the play.
How was it that the old aunt's news, or it might be scandal, about
Tom Tusher, caused such a strange and sudden excitement in Tom's old
playfellow? Hadn't he sworn a thousand times in his own mind that the
Lady of Castlewood, who had treated him with such kindness once,
and then had left him so cruelly, was, and was to remain henceforth,
indifferent to him for ever? Had his pride and his sense of justice not
long since helped him to cure the pain of that desertion--was it even a
pain to him now? Why, but last night as he walked across the fields
and meadows to Chelsey from Pall Mall, had he not composed two or three
stanzas of a song, celebrating Bracegirdle's brown eyes, and declaring
them a thousand times more beautiful than the brightest blue ones that
ever languished under the lashes of an insipid fair beauty! But Tom
Tusher! Tom Tusher, the waiting-woman's son, raising up his little eyes
to his mistress! Tom Tusher presuming to think of Castlewood's widow!
Rage and contempt filled Mr. Harry's heart at the very notion; the honor
of the family, of which he was the chief, made it his duty to prevent
so monstrous an alliance, and to chastise the upstart who could dare
to think of such an insult to their house. 'Tis true Mr. Esmond often
boasted of republican principles, and could remember many fine speeches
he had made at college and elsewhere, with WORTH and not BIRTH for a
text: but Tom Tusher to take the place of the noble Castlewood--faugh!
'twas as monstrous as King Hamlet's widow taking off her weeds for
Claudius. Esmond laughed at all widows, all wives, all women; and were
the banns about to be published, as no doubt they were, that very next
Sunday at Walcote Church, Esmond swore that he would be present to shout
No! in the face of the congregation, and to take a private revenge upon
the ears of the bridegroom.
Instead of going to dinner then at the “Rose” that night, Mr. Esmond
bade his servant pack a portmanteau and get horses, and was at Farnham,
half-way on the road to Walcote, thirty miles off, before his comrades
had got to their supper after the play. He bade his man give no hint to
my Lady Dowager's household of the expedition on which he was going;
and as Chelsey was distant from London, the roads bad, and infested
by footpads, and Esmond often in the habit, when engaged in a party of
pleasure, of lying at a friend's lodging in town, there was no need that
his old aunt should be disturbed at his absence--indeed, nothing more
delighted the old lady than to fancy that mon cousin, the incorrigible
young sinner, was abroad boxing the watch, or scouring St. Giles's. When
she was not at her books of devotion, she thought Etheridge and Sedley
very good reading. She had a hundred pretty stories about Rochester,
Harry Jermyn, and Hamilton; and if Esmond would but have run away with
the wife even of a citizen, 'tis my belief she would have pawned her
diamonds (the best of them went to our Lady of Chaillot) to pay his
damages.
My lord's little house of Walcote--which he inhabited before he took
his title and occupied the house of Castlewood--lies about a mile from
Winchester, and his widow had returned to Walcote after my lord's death
as a place always dear to her, and where her earliest and happiest days
had been spent, cheerfuller than Castlewood, which was too large for her
straitened means, and giving her, too, the protection of the ex-dean,
her father. The young Viscount had a year's schooling at the famous
college there, with Mr. Tusher as his governor. So much news of them Mr.
Esmond had had during the past year from the old Viscountess, his own
father's widow; from the young one there had never been a word.
Twice or thrice in his benefactor's lifetime, Esmond had been to
Walcote; and now, taking but a couple of hours' rest only at the inn on
the road, he was up again long before daybreak, and made such good speed
that he was at Walcote by two o'clock of the day. He rid to the end of
the village, where he alighted and sent a man thence to Mr. Tusher, with
a message that a gentleman from London would speak with him on urgent
business. The messenger came back to say the Doctor was in town, most
likely at prayers in the Cathedral. My Lady Viscountess was there, too;
she always went to Cathedral prayers every day.
The horses belonged to the post-house at Winchester. Esmond mounted
again and rode on to the “George;” whence he walked, leaving his
grumbling domestic at last happy with a dinner, straight to the
Cathedral. The organ was playing: the winter's day was already growing
gray: as he passed under the street-arch into the Cathedral yard, and
made his way into the ancient solemn edifice.