As a proof of her argument, Madam Esmond and Harry too would point to an instance in our own family in the person of Mr. Gumbo. Having got his freedom from me, as a reward for his admirable love and fidelity to me when times were hard, Gumbo, on his return to Virginia, was scarce a welcome guest in his old quarters, amongst my mother's servants. He was free, and they were not: he was, as it were, a centre of insurrection. He gave himself no small airs of protection and consequence amongst them; bragging of his friends in Europe ("at home," as he called it), and his doings there; and for a while bringing the household round about him to listen to him and admire him, like the monkey who had seen the world. Now, Sady, Hal's boy, who went to America of his own desire, was not free. Hence jealousies between him and Mr. Gum; and battles, in which they both practised the noble art of boxing and butting, which they had learned at Marybone Gardens and Hockley-in-the-Hole. Nor was Sady the only jealous person: almost all my mother's servants hated Signor Gumbo for the airs which he gave himself; and I am sorry to say, that our faithful Molly, his wife, was as jealous as his old fellow-servants. The blacks could not pardon her for having demeaned herself so far as to marry one of their kind. She met with no respect, could exercise no authority, came to her mistress with ceaseless complaints of the idleness, knavery, lies, stealing of the black people; and finally with a story of jealousy against a certain Dinah, or Diana, who, I heartily trust, was as innocent as her namesake the moonlight visitant of Endymion. Now, on the article of morality Madam Esmond was a very Draconess; and a person accused was a person guilty. She made charges against Mr. Gumbo to which he replied with asperity. Forgetting that he was a free gentleman, my mother now ordered Gumbo to be whipped, on which Molly flew at her ladyship, all her wrath at her husband's infidelity vanishing at the idea of the indignity put upon him; there was a rebellion in our house at Castlewood. A quarrel took place between me and my mother, as I took my man's side. Hal and Fanny sided with her, on the contrary; and in so far the difference did good, as it brought about some little intimacy between Madam and her younger children. This little difference was speedily healed; but it was clear that the Standard of Insurrection must be removed out of our house; and we determined that Mr. Gumbo and his lady should return to Europe.

My wife and I would willingly have gone with them, God wot, for our boy sickened and lost his strength, and caught the fever in our swampy country; but at this time she was expecting to lie in (of our son Henry), and she knew, too, that I had promised to stay in Virginia. It was agreed that we should send the two back; but when I offered Theo to go, she said her place was with her husband;—her father and Hetty at home would take care of our children; and she scarce would allow me to see a tear in her eyes whilst she was making her preparations for the departure of her little ones. Dost thou remember the time, madam, and the silence round the worktables, as the piles of little shirts are made ready for the voyage? and the stealthy visits to the children's chambers whilst they are asleep and yet with you? and the terrible time of parting, as our barge with the servants and children rows to the ship, and you stand on the shore? Had the Prince of Wales been going on that voyage, he could not have been better provided. Where, sirrah, is the Tompion watch your grandmother gave you? and how did you survive the boxes of cakes which the good lady stowed away in your cabin?

The ship which took out my poor Theo's children, returned with the Reverend Mr. Hagan and my Lady Maria on board, who meekly chose to resign her rank, and was known in the colony (which was not to be a colony very long) only as Mrs. Hagan. At the time when I was in favour with my Lord Dunmore, a living falling vacant in Westmoreland county, he gave it to our kinsman, who arrived in Virginia time enough to christen our boy Henry, and to preach some sermons on the then gloomy state of affairs, which Madam Esmond pronounced to be prodigious fine. I think my Lady Maria won Madam's heart by insisting on going out of the room after her. "My father, your brother, was an earl, 'tis true," says she, "but you know your ladyship is a marquis's daughter, and I never can think of taking precedence of you!" So fond did Madam become of her niece, that she even allowed Hagan to read plays—my own humble compositions amongst others—and was fairly forced to own that there was merit in the tragedy of Pocahontas, which our parson delivered with uncommon energy and fire.

Hal and his wife came but rarely to Castlewood and Richmond when the chaplain and his lady were with us. Fanny was very curt and rude with Maria, used to giggle and laugh strangely in her company, and repeatedly remind her of her age, to our mother's astonishment, who would often ask, was there any cause of quarrel between her niece and her daughter-in-law? I kept my own counsel on these occasions, and was often not a little touched by the meekness with which the elder lady bore her persecutions. Fanny loved to torture her in her husband's presence (who, poor fellow, was also in happy ignorance about his wife's early history), and the other bore her agony, wincing as little as might be. I sometimes would remonstrate with Madam Harry, and ask her was she a Red Indian, that she tortured her victims so? "Have not I had torture enough in my time?" says the young lady, and looked as though she was determined to pay back the injuries inflicted on her.

"Nay," says I, "you were bred in our wigwam, and I don't remember anything but kindness!"

"Kindness!" cries she. "No slave was ever treated as I was. The blows which wound most, often are those which never are aimed. The people who hate us are not those we have injured."

I thought of little Fanny in our early days, silent, smiling, willing to run and do all our biddings for us, and I grieved for my poor brother, who had taken this sly creature into his bosom.



CHAPTER LXXXVIII. Yankee Doodle comes to Town

One of the uses to which we put America in the days of our British dominion was to make it a refuge for our sinners. Besides convicts and assigned servants whom we transported to our colonies, we discharged on their shores scapegraces and younger sons, for whom dissipation, despair, and bailiffs made the old country uninhabitable. And as Mr. Cook, in his voyages, made his newly discovered islanders presents of English animals (and other specimens of European civilisation), we used to take care to send samples of our black sheep over to the colonies, there to browse as best they might, and propagate their precious breed. I myself was perhaps a little guilty in this matter, in busying myself to find a living in America for the worthy Hagan, husband of my kinswoman,—at least was guilty in so far as this, that as we could get him no employment in England, we were glad to ship him to Virginia, and give him a colonial pulpit-cushion to thump. He demeaned himself there as a brave honest gentleman, to be sure; he did his duty thoroughly by his congregation, and his king too; and in so far did credit to my small patronage. Madam Theo used to urge this when I confided to her my scruples of conscience on this subject, and show, as her custom was and is, that my conduct in this, as in all other matters, was dictated by the highest principle of morality and honour. But would I have given Hagan our living at home, and selected him and his wife to minister to our parish? I fear not. I never had a doubt of our cousin's sincere repentance; but I think I was secretly glad when she went to work it out in the wilderness. And I say this, acknowledging my pride and my error. Twice, when I wanted them most, this kind Maria aided me with her sympathy and friendship. She bore her own distresses courageously, and soothed those of others with admirable affection and devotion. And yet I, and some of mine (not Theo), would look down upon her. Oh, for shame, for shame on our pride!

My poor Lady Maria was not the only one of our family who was to be sent out of the way to American wildernesses. Having borrowed, stolen, cheated at home, until he could cheat, borrow, and steal no more, the Honourable William Esmond, Esquire, was accommodated with a place at New York; and his noble brother and royal master heartily desired that they might see him no more. When the troubles began, we heard of the fellow and his doings in his new habitation. Lies and mischief were his avant-couriers wherever he travelled. My Lord Dunmore informed me that Mr. Will declared publicly, that our estate of Castlewood was only ours during his brother's pleasure; that his father, out of consideration for Madam Esmond, his lordship's half-sister, had given her the place for life, and that he, William, was in negotiation with his brother, the present Lord Castlewood, for the purchase of the reversion of the estate! We had the deed of gift in our strongroom at Castlewood, and it was furthermore registered in due form at Williamsburg; so that we were easy on that score. But the intention was everything; and Hal and I promised, as soon as ever we met Mr. William, to get from him a confirmation of this pretty story. What Madam Esmond's feelings and expressions were when she heard it, I need scarcely here particularise. "What! my father, the Marquis of Esmond, was a liar, and I am a cheat, am I?" cries my mother. "He will take my son's property at my death, will he?" And she was for writing, not only to Lord Castlewood in England, but to his Majesty himself at St. James's, and was only prevented by my assurance that Mr. Will's lies were notorious amongst all his acquaintance, and that we could not expect, in our own case, that he should be so inconsistent as to tell the truth. We heard of him presently as one of the loudest amongst the Loyalists in New York, as Captain, and presently Major of a corps of volunteers who were sending their addresses to the well-disposed in all the other colonies, and announcing their perfect readiness to die for the mother country.

We could not lie in a house without a whole window, and closing the shutters of that unlucky mansion we had hired at Williamsburg, Madam Esmond left our little capital, and my family returned to Richmond, which also was deserted by the members of the (dissolved) Assembly. Captain Hal and his wife returned pretty early to their plantation; and I, not a little annoyed at the course which events were taking, divided my time pretty much between my own family and that of our Governor, who professed himself very eager to have my advice and company. There were the strongest political differences, but as yet no actual personal quarrel. Even after the dissolution of our House of Assembly (the members of which adjourned to a tavern, and there held that famous meeting where, I believe, the idea of a congress of all the colonies was first proposed), the gentlemen who were strongest in opposition remained good friends with his Excellency, partook of his hospitality, and joined him in excursions of pleasure. The session over, the gentry went home and had meetings in their respective counties; and the Assemblies in most of the other provinces having been also abruptly dissolved, it was agreed everywhere that a general congress should be held. Philadelphia, as the largest and most important city on our continent, was selected as the place of meeting; and those celebrated conferences began, which were but the angry preface of war. We were still at God save the King; we were still presenting our humble petitions to the throne; but when I went to visit my brother Harry at Fanny's Mount (his new plantation lay not far from ours, but with Rappahannock between us, and towards Mattaponey River), he rode out on business one morning, and I in the afternoon happened to ride too, and was told by one of the grooms that master was gone towards Willis's Ordinary; in which direction, thinking no harm, I followed. And upon a clear place not far from Willis's, as I advance out of the wood, I come on Captain Hal on horseback, with three- or four-and-thirty countrymen round about him, armed with every sort of weapon, pike, scythe, fowling-piece, and musket; and the Captain, with two or three likely young fellows as officers under him, putting the men through their exercise. As I rode up a queer expression comes over Hal's face. "Present arms!" says he (and the army tries to perform the salute as well they could). "Captain Cade, this is my brother, Sir George Warrington."

"As a relation of yours, Colonel," says the individual addressed as captain, "the gentleman is welcome," and he holds out a hand accordingly.

"And—and a true friend to Virginia," says Hal, with a reddening face.

"Yes, please God! gentlemen," say I, on which the regiment gives a hearty huzzay for the Colonel and his brother. The drill over, the officers, and the men too, were for adjourning to Willis's and taking some refreshment, but Colonel Hal said he could not drink with them that afternoon, and we trotted homewards together.

"So, Hal, the cat's out of the bag!" I said.

He gave me a hard look. "I guess there's wilder cats in it. It must come to this, George. I say, you mustn't tell Madam," he adds.

"Good God!" I cried, "do you mean that with fellows such as those I saw yonder, you and your friends are going to make fight against the greatest nation and the best army in the world?"

"I guess we shall get an awful whipping," says Hal, "and that's the fact. But then, George," he added, with his sweet kind smile, "we are young, and a whipping or two may do us good. Won't it do us good, Dolly, you old slut?" and he gives a playful touch with his whip to an old dog of all trades, that was running by him.

I did not try to urge upon him (I had done so in vain many times previously) our British side of the question, the side which appears to me to be the best. He was accustomed to put off my reasons by saying, "All mighty well, brother, you speak as an Englishman, and have cast in your lot with your country, as I have with mine." To this argument I own there is no answer, and all that remains for the disputants is to fight the matter out, when the strongest is in the right. Which had the right in the wars of the last century? The king or the parliament? The side that was uppermost was the right, and on the whole much more humane in their victory than the Cavaliers would have been had they won. Nay, suppose we Tories had won the day in America; how frightful and bloody that triumph would have been! What ropes and scaffolds one imagines, what noble heads laid low! A strange feeling this, I own; I was on the Loyalist side, and yet wanted the Whigs to win. My brother Hal, on the other hand, who distinguished himself greatly with his regiment, never allowed a word of disrespect against the enemy whom he opposed. "The officers of the British army," he used to say, "are gentlemen: at least, I have not heard that they are very much changed since my time. There may be scoundrels and ruffians amongst the enemy's troops; I dare say we could find some such amongst our own. Our business is to beat his Majesty's forces, not call them names;—any rascal can do that." And from a name which Mr. Lee gave my brother, and many of his rough horsemen did not understand, Harry was often called "Chevaleer Baird" in the Continental army. He was a knight, indeed, without fear and without reproach.

As for the argument, "What could such people as those you were drilling do against the British army?" Hal had as confident answer.

"They can beat them," says he, "Mr. George, that's what they can do."

"Great heavens!" I cry, "do you mean with your company of Wolfe's you would hesitate to attack five hundred such?"

"With my company of the 67th, I would go anywhere. And, agreed with you, that at this present moment I know more of soldiering than they;—but place me on that open ground where you found us, armed as you please, and half a dozen of my friends, with rifles, in the woods round about me; which would get the better? You know best, Mr. Braddock's aide-de-camp!"

There was no arguing with such a determination as this. "Thou knowest my way of thinking, Hal," I said; "and having surprised you at your work, I must tell my lord what I have seen."

"Tell him, of course. You have seen our county militia exercising. You will see as much in every colony from here to the Saint Lawrence or Georgia. As I am an old soldier, they have elected me colonel. What more natural? Come, brother, let us trot on; dinner will be ready, and Mrs. Fan does not like me to keep it waiting." And so we made for his house, which was open like all the houses of our Virginian gentlemen, and where not only every friend and neighbour, but every stranger and traveller, was sure to find a welcome.

"So, Mrs. Fan," I said, "I have found out what game my brother has been playing."

"I trust the Colonel will have plenty of sport ere long," says she, with a toss of her head.

My wife thought Harry had been hunting, and I did not care to undeceive her, though what I had seen and he had told me, made me naturally very anxious.



CHAPTER LXXXIX. A Colonel without a Regiment

When my visit to my brother was concluded, and my wife and young child had returned to our maternal house at Richmond, I made it my business to go over to our Governor, then at his country house, near Williamsburg, and confer with him regarding these open preparations for war, which were being made not only in our own province, but in every one of the colonies as far as we could learn. Gentlemen, with whose names history has since made all the world familiar, were appointed from Virginia as Delegates to the General Congress about to be held in Philadelphia. In Massachusetts the people and the Royal troops were facing each other almost in open hostility: in Maryland and Pennsylvania we flattered ourselves that a much more loyal spirit was prevalent: in the Carolinas and Georgia the mother country could reckon upon staunch adherents, and a great majority of the inhabitants: and it never was to be supposed that our own Virginia would forgo its ancient loyalty. We had but few troops in the province, but its gentry were proud of their descent from the Cavaliers of the old times: and round about our Governor were swarms of loud and confident Loyalists who were only eager for the moment when they might draw the sword, and scatter the rascally rebels before them. Of course, in these meetings I was forced to hear many a hard word against my poor Harry. His wife, all agreed (and not without good reason, perhaps), had led him to adopt these extreme anti-British opinions which he had of late declared; and he was infatuated by his attachment to the gentleman of Mount Vernon, it was farther said, whose opinions my brother always followed, and who, day by day, was committing himself farther in the dreadful and desperate course of resistance. "This is your friend," the people about his Excellency said, "this is the man you favoured, who has had your special confidence, and who has repeatedly shared your hospitality!" It could not but be owned much of this was true: though what some of our eager Loyalists called treachery was indeed rather a proof of the longing desire Mr. Washington and other gentlemen had, not to withdraw from their allegiance to the Crown, but to remain faithful, and exhaust the very last chance of reconciliation, before they risked the other terrible alternative of revolt and separation. Let traitors arm, and villains draw the parricidal sword! We at least would remain faithful; the unconquerable power of England would be exerted, and the misguided and ungrateful provinces punished and brought back to their obedience. With what cheers we drank his Majesty's health after our banquets! We would die in defence of his rights; we would have a Prince of his Royal house to come and govern his ancient dominions! In consideration of my own and my excellent mother's loyalty, my brother's benighted conduct should be forgiven. Was it yet too late to secure him by offering him a good command? Would I not intercede with him, who, it was known, had a great influence over him? In our Williamsburg councils we were alternately in every state of exaltation and triumph, of hope, of fury against the rebels, of anxious expectancy of home succour, of doubt, distrust, and gloom.

I promised to intercede with my brother; and wrote to him, I own, with but little hope of success, repeating, and trying to strengthen the arguments which I had many a time used in our conversations. My mother, too, used her authority; but from this, I own, I expected little advantage. She assailed him, as her habit was, with such texts of Scripture as she thought bore out her own opinion, and threatened punishment to him. She menaced him with the penalties which must fall upon those who were disobedient to the powers that be. She pointed to his elder brother's example; and hinted, I fear, at his subjection to his wife, the very worst argument she could use in such a controversy. She did not show me her own letter to him; possibly she knew I might find fault with the energy of some of the expressions she thought proper to employ; but she showed me his answer, from which I gathered what the style and tenor of her argument had been. And if Madam Esmond brought Scripture to her aid, Mr. Hal, to my surprise, brought scores of texts to bear upon her in reply, and addressed her in a very neat, temperate, and even elegant composition, which I thought his wife herself was scarcely capable of penning. Indeed, I found he had enlisted the services of Mr. Belman, the New Richmond clergyman, who had taken up strong opinions on the Whig side, and who preached and printed sermons against Hagan (who, as I have said, was of our faction), in which I fear Belman had the best of the dispute.

My exhortations to Hal had no more success than our mother's. He did not answer my letters. Being still farther pressed by the friends of the Government, I wrote over most imprudently to say I would visit him at the end of the week at Fanny's Mount; but on arriving, I only found my sister, who received me with perfect cordiality, but informed me that Hal was gone into the country, ever so far towards the Blue Mountains to look at some horses, and was to be away—she did not know how long he was to be away!

I knew then there was no hope. "My dear," I said, "as far as I can judge from the signs of the times, the train that has been laid these years must have a match put to it before long. Harry is riding away. God knows to what end."

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

"Amen, with all my heart. You and he speak as Americans; I as an Englishman. Tell him from me, that when anything in the course of nature shall happen to our mother, I have enough for me and mine in England, and shall resign all our land here in Virginia to him."

"You don't mean that, George?" she cries, with brightening eyes. "Well, to be sure, it is but right and fair," she presently added. "Why should you, who are the eldest but by an hour, have everything? a palace and lands in England—the plantation here—the title—and children—and my poor Harry none? But 'tis generous of you all the same—leastways handsome and proper, and I didn't expect it of you; and you don't take after your mother in this, Sir George, that you don't, nohow. Give my love to sister Theo!" And she offers me a cheek to kiss, ere I ride away from her door. With such a woman as Fanny to guide him, how could I hope to make a convert of my brother?

Having met with this poor success in my enterprise, I rode back to our Governor, with whom I agreed that it was time to arm in earnest, and prepare ourselves against the shock that certainly was at hand. He and his whole Court of Officials were not a little agitated and excited; needlessly savage, I thought, in their abuse of the wicked Whigs, and loud in their shouts of Old England for ever; but they were all eager for the day when the contending parties could meet hand to hand, and they could have an opportunity of riding those wicked Whigs down. And I left my lord, having received the thanks of his Excellency in Council, and engaged to do my best endeavours to raise a body of men in defence of the Crown. Hence the corps, called afterwards the Westmoreland Defenders, had its rise, of which I had the honour to be appointed Colonel, and which I was to command when it appeared in the field. And that fortunate event must straightway take place, so soon as the county knew that a gentleman of my station and name would take the command of the force. The announcement was duly made in the Government Gazette, and we filled in our officers readily enough; but the recruits, it must be owned, were slow to come in, and quick to disappear. Nevertheless, friend Hagan eagerly came forward to offer himself as chaplain. Madam Esmond gave us our colours, and progressed about the country engaging volunteers; but the most eager recruiter of all was my good old tutor, little Mr. Dempster, who had been out as a boy on the Jacobite side in Scotland, and who went specially into the Carolinas, among the children of his banished old comrades, who had worn the white cockade of Prince Charles, and who most of all showed themselves in this contest still loyal to the Crown.

Hal's expedition in search of horses led him not only so far as the Blue Mountains in our colony, but thence on a long journey to Annapolis and Baltimore; and from Baltimore to Philadelphia, to be sure; where a second General Congress was now sitting, attended by our Virginian gentlemen of the last year. Meanwhile, all the almanacs tell what had happened. Lexington had happened, and the first shots were fired in the war which was to end in the independence of our native country. We still protested of our loyalty to his Majesty; but we stated our determination to die or be free; and some twenty thousand of our loyal petitioners assembled round about Boston with arms in their hands and cannon, to which they had helped themselves out of the Government stores. Mr. Arnold had begun that career which was to end so brilliantly, by the daring and burglarious capture of two forts, of which he forced the doors. Three generals from Bond Street, with a large reinforcement, were on their way to help Mr. Gage out of his ugly position at Boston. Presently the armies were actually engaged; and our British generals commenced their career of conquest and pacification in the colonies by the glorious blunder of Breed's Hill. Here they fortified themselves, feeling themselves not strong enough for the moment to win any more glorious victories over the rebels; and the two armies lay watching each other whilst Congress was deliberating at Philadelphia who should command the forces of the confederated colonies.

We all know on whom the most fortunate choice of the nation fell. Of the Virginian regiment which marched to join the new General-in-Chief, one was commanded by Henry Esmond Warrington, Esq., late a Captain in his Majesty's service; and by his side rode his little wife, of whose bravery we often subsequently heard. I was glad, for one, that she had quitted Virginia; for, had she remained after her husband's departure, our mother would infallibly have gone over to give her battle; and I was thankful, at least, that that terrific incident of civil war was spared to our family and history.

The rush of our farmers and country-folk was almost all directed towards the new northern army; and our people were not a little flattered at the selection of a Virginian gentleman for the principal command. With a thrill of wrath and fury the provinces heard of the blood drawn at Lexington; and men yelled denunciations against the cruelty and wantonness of the bloody British invader. The invader was but doing his duty, and was met and resisted by men in arms, who wished to prevent him from helping himself to his own; but people do not stay to weigh their words when they mean to be angry; the colonists had taken their side; and, with what I own to be a natural spirit and ardour, were determined to have a trial of strength with the braggart domineering mother country. Breed's Hill became a mountain, as it were, which all men of the American Continent might behold, with Liberty, Victory, Glory, on its flaming summit. These dreaded troops could be withstood, then, by farmers and ploughmen. These famous officers could be outgeneralled by doctors, lawyers, and civilians! Granted that Britons could conquer all the world;—here were their children who could match and conquer Britons! Indeed, I don't know which of the two deserves the palm, either for bravery or vainglory. We are in the habit of laughing at our French neighbours for boasting, gasconading, and so forth; but for a steady self-esteem and indomitable confidence in our own courage, greatness, magnanimity;—who can compare with Britons, except their children across the Atlantic?

The people round about us took the people's side for the most part in the struggle, and, truth to say, Sir George Warrington found his regiment of Westmoreland Defenders but very thinly manned at the commencement, and woefully diminished in numbers presently, not only after the news of battle from the north, but in consequence of the behaviour of my Lord our Governor, whose conduct enraged no one more than his own immediate partisans, and the loyal adherents of the Crown throughout the colony. That he would plant the King's standard, and summon all loyal gentlemen to rally round it, had been a measure agreed in countless meetings, and applauded over thousands of bumpers. I have a pretty good memory, and could mention the name of many a gentleman, now a smug officer of the United States Government, whom I have heard hiccup out a prayer that he might be allowed to perish under the folds of his country's flag; or roar a challenge to the bloody traitors absent with the rebel army. But let bygones be bygones. This, however, is matter of public history, that his lordship, our Governor, a peer of Scotland, the Sovereign's representative in his Old Dominion, who so loudly invited all the lieges to join the King's standard, was the first to put it in his pocket, and fly to his ships out of reach of danger. He would not leave them, save as a pirate at midnight to burn and destroy. Meanwhile, we loyal gentry remained on shore, committed to our cause, and only subject to greater danger in consequence of the weakness and cruelty of him who ought to have been our leader. It was the beginning of June, our orchards and gardens were all blooming with plenty and summer; a week before I had been over at Williamsburg, exchanging compliments with his Excellency, devising plans for future movements by which we should be able to make good head against rebellion, shaking hands heartily at parting, and vincere aut mori the very last words upon all our lips. Our little family was gathered at Richmond, talking over, as we did daily, the prospect of affairs in the north, the quarrels between our own Assembly and his Excellency, by whom they had been afresh convened, when our ghostly Hagan rushes into our parlour, and asks, "Have we heard the news of the Governor?"

"Has he dissolved the Assembly again, and put that scoundrel Patrick Henry in irons?" asks Madam Esmond.

"No such thing! His lordship with his lady and family have left their palace privately at night. They are on board a man-of-war off York, whence my lord has sent a despatch to the Assembly, begging them to continue their sitting, and announcing that he himself had only quitted his Government House out of fear of the fury of the people."

What was to become of the sheep, now the shepherd had run away? No entreaties could be more pathetic than those of the gentlemen of the House of Assembly, who guaranteed their Governor security if he would but land, and implored him to appear amongst them, if but to pass bills and transact the necessary business. No: the man-of-war was his seat of government, and my lord desired his House of Commons to wait upon him there. This was erecting the King's standard with a vengeance. Our Governor had left us; our Assembly perforce ruled in his stead; a rabble of people followed the fugitive Viceroy on board his ships. A mob of negroes deserted out of the plantations to join this other deserter. He and his black allies landed here and there in darkness, and emulated the most lawless of our opponents in their alacrity at seizing and burning. He not only invited runaway negroes, but he sent an ambassador to Indians with entreaties to join his standard. When he came on shore it was to burn and destroy: when the people resisted, as at Norfolk and Hampton, he retreated and betook himself to his ships again.

Even my mother, after that miserable flight of our chief, was scared at the aspect of affairs, and doubted of the speedy putting down of the rebellion. The arming of the negroes was, in her opinion, the most cowardly blow of all. The loyal gentry were ruined, and robbed, many of them, of their only property. A score of our worst hands deserted from Richmond and Castlewood, and fled to our courageous Governor's fleet; not all of them, though some of them, were slain, and a couple hung by the enemy for plunder and robbery perpetrated whilst with his lordship's precious army. Because her property was wantonly injured, and his Majesty's chief officer an imbecile, would Madam Esmond desert the cause of Royalty and Honour? My good mother was never so prodigiously dignified, and loudly and enthusiastically loyal, as after she heard of our Governor's lamentable defection. The people round about her, though most of them of quite a different way of thinking, listened to her speeches without unkindness. Her oddities were known far and wide through our province; where, I am afraid, many of the wags amongst our young men were accustomed to smoke her, as the phrase then was, and draw out her stories about the Marquis her father, about the splendour of her family, and so forth. But along with her oddities, her charities and kindness were remembered, and many a rebel, as she called them, had a sneaking regard for the pompous little Tory lady.

As for the Colonel of the Westmoreland Defenders, though that gentleman's command dwindled utterly away after the outrageous conduct of his chief, yet I escaped from some very serious danger which might have befallen me and mine in consequence of some disputes which I was known to have had with my Lord Dunmore. Going on board his ship after he had burned the stores at Hampton, and issued the proclamation calling the negroes to his standard, I made so free as to remonstrate with him in regard to both measures; I implored him to return to Williamsburg, where hundreds of us, thousands, I hoped, would be ready to defend him to the last extremity; and in my remonstrance used terms so free, or rather, as I suspect, indicated my contempt for his conduct so clearly by my behaviour, that his lordship flew into a rage, said I was a rebel like all the rest of them, and ordered me under arrest there on board his own ship. In my quality of militia officer (since the breaking out of the troubles I commonly used a red coat, to show that I wore the King's colour) I begged for a court-martial immediately; and turning round to two officers who had been present during our altercation, desired them to remember all that had passed between his lordship and me. These gentlemen were no doubt of my way of thinking as to the chief's behaviour, and our interview ended in my going ashore unaccompanied by a guard. The story got wind amongst the Whig gentry, and was improved in the telling. I had spoken out my mind manfully to the Governor; no Whig could have uttered sentiments more liberal. When riots took place in Richmond, and of the Loyalists remaining there, many were in peril of life and betook themselves to the ships, my mother's property and house were never endangered, nor her family insulted. We were still at the stage when a reconciliation was fondly thought possible. "Ah! if all the Tories were like you," a distinguished Whig has said to me, "we and the people at home should soon come together again." This, of course, was before the famous Fourth of July, and that Declaration which rendered reconcilement impossible. Afterwards, when parties grew more rancorous, motives much less creditable were assigned for my conduct, and it was said I chose to be a Liberal Tory because I was a cunning fox, and wished to keep my estate whatever way things went. And this, I am bound to say, is the opinion regarding my humble self which has obtained in very high quarters at home, where a profound regard for my own interest has been supposed not uncommonly to have occasioned my conduct during the late unhappy troubles.

There were two or three persons in the world (for I had not told my mother how I was resolved to cede to my brother all my life-interest in our American property) who knew that I had no mercenary motives in regard to the conduct I pursued. It was not worth while to undeceive others; what were life worth, if a man were forced to feel himself a la piste of all the calumnies uttered against him? And I do not quite know to this present day, how it happened that my mother, that notorious Loyalist, was left for several years quite undisturbed in her house at Castlewood, a stray troop or company of Continentals being occasionally quartered upon her. I do not know for certain, I say, how this piece of good fortune happened, though I can give a pretty shrewd guess as to the cause of it. Madam Fanny, after a campaign before Boston, came back to Fanny's Mount, leaving her Colonel. My modest Hal, until the conclusion of the war, would accept no higher rank, believing that in command of a regiment he could be more useful than in charge of a division. Madam Fanny, I say, came back, and it was remarkable after her return how her old asperity towards my mother seemed to be removed, and what an affection she showed for her and all the property. She was great friends with the Governor and some of the most influential gentlemen of the new Assembly:—Madam Esmond was harmless, and for her son's sake, who was bravely battling for his country, her errors should be lightly visited:—I know not how it was, but for years she remained unharmed, except in respect of heavy Government requisitions, which of course she had to pay, and it was not until the redcoats appeared about our house, that much serious evil came to it.



CHAPTER XC

In which we both fight and run away

What was the use of a Colonel without a regiment? The Governor and Council who had made such a parade of thanks in endowing me with mine, were away out of sight, skulking on board ships, with an occasional piracy and arson on shore. My Lord Dunmore's black allies frightened away those of his own blood; and besides these negroes whom he had summoned round him in arms, we heard that he had sent an envoy among the Indians of the South, and that they were to come down in numbers and tomahawk our people into good behaviour. "And these are to be our allies!" I say to my mother, exchanging ominous looks with her, and remembering, with a ghastly distinctness, that savage whose face glared over mine, and whose knife was at my throat when Florac struck him down on Braddock's Field. We put our house of Castlewood into as good a state of defence as we could devise; but, in truth, it was more of the red men and the blacks than of the rebels we were afraid. I never saw my mother lose courage but once, and then when she was recounting to us the particulars of our father's death in a foray of Indians more than forty years ago. Seeing some figures one night moving in front of our house, nothing could persuade the good lady but that they were savages, and she sank on her knees crying out, "The Lord have mercy upon us! The Indians—the Indians!"

My lord's negro allies vanished on board his ships, or where they could find pay and plunder; but the painted heroes from the South never made their appearance, though I own to have looked at my mother's grey head, my wife's brown hair, and our little one's golden ringlets, with a horrible pang of doubt lest these should fall the victims of ruffian war. And it was we who fought with such weapons, and enlisted these allies! But that I dare not (so to speak) be setting myself up as interpreter of Providence, and pointing out the special finger of Heaven (as many people are wont to do), I would say our employment of these Indians, and of the German mercenaries, brought their own retribution with them in this war. In the field, where the mercenaries were attacked by the Provincials, they yielded, and it was triumphing over them that so raised the spirit of the Continental army; and the murder of one woman (Miss McCrea) by a half-dozen drunken Indians, did more harm to the Royal cause than the loss of a battle or the destruction of regiments.

Now, the Indian panic over, Madam Esmond's courage returned: and she began to be seriously and not unjustly uneasy at the danger which I ran myself, and which I brought upon others, by remaining in Virginia.

"What harm can they do me," says she, "a poor woman? If I have one son a colonel without a regiment, I have another with a couple of hundred Continentals behind him in Mr. Washington's camp. If the Royalists come, they will let me off for your sake; if the rebels appear, I shall have Harry's passport. I don't wish, sir, I don't like that your delicate wife and this dear little baby should be here, and only increase the risk of all of us! We must have them away to Boston or New York. Don't talk about defending me! Who will think of hurting a poor, harmless, old woman? If the rebels come, I shall shelter behind Mrs. Fanny's petticoats, and shall be much safer without you in the house than in it." This she said in part, perhaps, because 'twas reasonable; more so because she would have me and my family out of the danger; and danger or not, for her part felt that she was determined to remain in the land where her father was buried, and she was born. She was living backwards, so to speak. She had seen the new generation, and blessed them, and bade them farewell. She belonged to the past, and old days and memories.

While we were debating about the Boston scheme, comes the news that the British have evacuated that luckless city altogether, never having ventured to attack Mr. Washington in his camp at Cambridge (though he lay there for many months without powder at our mercy); but waiting until he procured ammunition, and seized and fortified Dorchester heights, which commanded the town, out of which the whole British army and colony was obliged to beat a retreat. That the King's troops won the battle at Bunker's Hill, there is no more doubt than that they beat the French at Blenheim; but through the war their chiefs seem constantly to have been afraid of assaulting entrenched Continentals afterwards; else why, from July to March, hesitate to strike an almost defenceless enemy? Why the hesitation at Long Island, when the Continental army was in our hand? Why that astonishing timorousness—of Howe before Valley Forge, where the relics of a force starving, sickening, and in rags, could scarcely man the lines, which they held before a great, victorious, and perfectly appointed army?

As the hopes and fears of the contending parties rose and fell, it was curious to mark the altered tone of the partisans of either. When the news came to us in the country of the evacuation of Boston, every little Whig in the neighbourhood made his bow to Madam, and advised her to a speedy submission. She did not carry her loyalty quite so openly as heretofore, and flaunt her flag in the faces of the public, but she never swerved. Every night and morning in private poor Hagan prayed for the Royal Family in our own household, and on Sundays any neighbours were welcome to attend the service, where my mother acted as a very emphatic clerk, and the prayer for the High Court of Parliament under our most religious and gracious King was very stoutly delivered. The brave Hagan was a parson without a living, as I was a Militia Colonel without a regiment. Hagan had continued to pray stoutly for King George in Williamsburg, long after his Excellency our Governor had run away: but on coming to church one Sunday to perform his duty, he found a corporal's guard at the church-door, who told him that the Committee of Safety had put another divine in his place, and he was requested to keep a quiet tongue in his head. He told the men to "lead him before their chiefs" (our honest friend always loved tall words and tragic attitudes); and accordingly was marched through the streets to the Capitol, with a chorus of white and coloured blackguards at the skirts of his gown; and had an interview with Messrs. Henry and the new State officers, and confronted the robbers, as he said, in their den. Of course he was for making an heroic speech before these gentlemen (and was one of many men who perhaps would have no objection to be made martyrs, so that they might be roasted coram populo, or tortured in a full house), but Mr. Henry was determined to give him no such chance. After keeping Hagan three or four hours waiting in an anteroom in the company of negroes, when the worthy divine entered the new chief magistrate's room with an undaunted mien, and began a prepared speech with—"Sir, by what authority am I, a minister of the——" "Mr. Hagan," says the other, interrupting him, "I am too busy to listen to speeches. And as for King George, he has henceforth no more authority in this country than King Nebuchadnezzar. Mind you that, and hold your tongue, if you please! Stick to King John, sir, and King Macbeth; and if you will send round your benefit-tickets, all the Assembly shall come and hear you. Did you ever see Mr. Hagan on the boards, when you was in London, General?" And, so saying, Henry turns round upon Mr. Washington's second in command, General Lee, who was now come into Virginia upon State affairs, and our shamefaced good Hagan was bustled out of the room, reddening, and almost crying with shame. After this event we thought that Hagan's ministrations were best confined to us in the country, and removed the worthy pastor from his restive lambs in the city.

The selection of Virginians to the very highest civil and military appointments of the new government bribed and flattered many of our leading people, who, otherwise, and but for the outrageous conduct of our government, might have remained faithful to the Crown, and made good head against the rising rebellion. But, although we Loyalists were gagged and muzzled, though the Capitol was in the hands of the Whigs, and our vaunted levies of loyal recruits so many Falstaff's regiments for the most part, the faithful still kept intelligences with one another in the colony, and with our neighbours; and though we did not rise, and though we ran away, and though, in examination before committees, justices, and so forth, some of our frightened people gave themselves Republican airs, and vowed perdition to kings and nobles; yet we knew each other pretty well, and—according as the chances were more or less favourable to us, the master more or less hard—we concealed our colours, showed our colours, half showed our colours, or downright apostatised for the nonce, and cried, "Down with King George!" Our negroes bore about, from house to house, all sorts of messages and tokens. Endless underhand plots and schemes were engaged in by those who could not afford the light. The battle over, the neutrals come and join the winning side, and shout as loudly as the patriots. The runaways are not counted. Will any man tell me that the signers and ardent well-wishers of the Declaration of Independence were not in a minority of the nation, and that the minority did not win? We knew that apart of the defeated army of Massachusetts was about to make an important expedition southward, upon the success of which the very greatest hopes were founded; and I, for one, being anxious to make a movement as soon as there was any chance of activity, had put myself in communication with the ex-Governor Martin, of North Carolina, whom I proposed to join, with three or four of our Virginian gentlemen, officers of that notable corps of which we only wanted privates. We made no particular mystery about our departure from Castlewood; the affairs of Congress were not going so well yet that the new government could afford to lay any particular stress or tyranny upon persons of a doubtful way of thinking. Gentlemen's houses were still open; and in our southern fashion we would visit our friends for months at a time. My wife and I, with our infant and a fitting suite of servants, took leave of Madam Esmond on a visit to a neighbouring plantation. We went thence to another friend's house, and then to another, till finally we reached Wilmington, in North Carolina, which was the point at which we expected to stretch a hand to the succours which were coming to meet us.

Ere our arrival, our brother Carolinian Royalists had shown themselves in some force. Their encounters with the Whigs had been unlucky. The poor Highlanders had been no more fortunate in their present contest in favour of King George, than when they had drawn their swords against him in their own country. We did not reach Wilmington until the end of May, by which time we found Admiral Parker's squadron there, with General Clinton and five British regiments on board, whose object was a descent upon Charleston.

The General, to whom I immediately made myself known, seeing that my regiment consisted of Lady Warrington, our infant, whom she was nursing, and three negro servants, received us at first with a very grim welcome. But Captain Horner of the Sphinx frigate, who had been on the Jamaica station, and received, like all the rest of the world, many kindnesses from our dear Governor there, when he heard that my wife was General Lambert's daughter, eagerly received her on board, and gave up his best cabin to our service; and so we were refugees, too, like my Lord Dunmore, having waved our flag, to be sure, and pocketed it, and slipped out at the back door. From Wilmington we bore away quickly to Charleston, and in the course of the voyage and our delay in the river, previous to our assault on the place, I made some acquaintance with Mr. Clinton, which increased to a further intimacy. It was the King's birthday when we appeared in the river: we determined it was a glorious day for the commencement of the expedition.

It did not take place for some days after, and I leave out, purposely, all descriptions of my Penelope parting from her Hector, going forth on this expedition. In the first place, Hector is perfectly well (though a little gouty), nor has any rascal of a Pyrrhus made a prize of his widow: and in times of war and commotion, are not such scenes of woe and terror, and parting, occurring every hour? I can see the gentle face yet over the bulwark, as we descend the ship's side into the boats, and the smile of the infant on her arm. What old stories, to be sure! Captain Miles, having no natural taste for poetry, you have forgot the verses, no doubt, in Mr. Pope's Homer, in which you are described as parting with your heroic father; but your mother often read them to you as a boy, and keeps the gorget I wore on that day somewhere amongst her dressing-boxes now.

My second venture at fighting was no more lucky than my first. We came back to our ships that evening thoroughly beaten. The madcap Lee, whom Clinton had faced at Boston, now met him at Charleston. Lee, and the gallant garrison there, made a brilliant and most successful resistance. The fort on Sullivan's Island, which we attacked, was a nut we could not crack. The fire of all our frigates was not strong enough to pound its shell; the passage by which we moved up to the assault of the place was not fordable, as those officers found—Sir Henry at the head of them, who was always the first to charge—who attempted to wade it. Death by shot, by drowning, by catching my death of cold, I had braved before I returned to my wife; and our frigate being aground for a time and got off with difficulty, was agreeably cannonaded by the enemy until she got off her bank.

A small incident in the midst of this unlucky struggle was the occasion of a subsequent intimacy which arose between me and Sir Harry Clinton, and bound me to that most gallant officer during the Period in which it was my fortune to follow the war. Of his qualifications as a leader there may be many opinions: I fear to say, regarding a man I heartily respect and admire, there ought only to be one. Of his personal bearing and his courage there can be no doubt; he was always eager to show it; and whether at the final charge on Breed's Hill, when at the head of the rallied troops he carried the Continental lines, or here before Sullivan's Fort, or a year later at Fort Washington, when, standard in hand, he swept up the height, and entered the fort at the head of the storming column, Clinton was always foremost in the race of battle, and the King's service knew no more admirable soldier.

We were taking to the water from our boats, with the intention of forcing a column to the fort, through a way which our own guns had rendered practicable, when a shot struck a boat alongside of us, so well aimed, as actually to put three-fourths of the boat's crew hors de combat, and knock down the officer steering, and the flag behind him. I could not help crying out, "Bravo! well aimed!" for no ninepins ever went down more helplessly than these poor fellows before the round shot. Then the General, turning round to me, says, rather grimly, "Sir, the behaviour of the enemy seems to please you!" "I am pleased, sir," says I, "that my countrymen, yonder, should fight as becomes our nation." We floundered on towards the fort in the midst of the same amiable attentions from small arms and great, until we found the water was up to our breasts and deepening at every step, when we were fain to take to our boats again and pull out of harm's way. Sir Henry waited upon my Lady Warrington on board the Sphinx after this, and was very gracious to her, and mighty facetious regarding the character of the humble writer of the present memoir, whom his Excellency always described as a rebel at heart. I pray my children may live to see or engage in no great revolutions,—such as that, for instance, raging in the country of our miserable French neighbours. Save a very, very few indeed, the actors in those great tragedies do not bear to be scanned too closely; the chiefs are often no better than ranting quacks; the heroes ignoble puppets; the heroines anything but pure. The prize is not always to the brave. In our revolution it certainly did fall, for once and for a wonder, to the most deserving: but who knows his enemies now? His great and surprising triumphs were not in those rare engagements with the enemy where he obtained a trifling mastery; but over Congress; over hunger and disease; over lukewarm friends, or smiling foes in his own camp, whom his great spirit had to meet and master. When the struggle was over, and our important chiefs who had conducted it began to squabble and accuse each other in their own defence before the nation—what charges and counter-charges were brought; what pretexts of delay were urged; what piteous excuses were put forward that this fleet arrived too late; that that regiment mistook its orders; that these cannon-balls would not fit those guns; and so to the end of the chapter! Here was a general who beat us with no shot at times, and no powder, and no money; and he never thought of a convention; his courage never capitulated! Through all the doubt and darkness, the danger and long tempest of the war, I think it was only the American leader's indomitable soul that remained entirely steady.

Of course our Charleston expedition was made the most of, and pronounced a prodigious victory by the enemy, who had learnt (from their parents, perhaps) to cry victory if a corporal's guard were surprised, as loud as if we had won a pitched battle. Mr. Lee rushed back to New York, the conqueror of conquerors, trumpeting his glory, and by no man received with more eager delight than by the Commander-in-Chief of the American Army. It was my dear Lee and my dear General between them, then; and it hath always touched me in the history of our early Revolution to note that simple confidence and admiration with which the General-in-Chief was wont to regard officers under him, who had happened previously to serve with the King's army. So the Mexicans of old looked and wondered when they first saw an armed Spanish horseman! And this mad, flashy braggart (and another Continental general, whose name and whose luck afterwards were sufficiently notorious) you may be sure took advantage of the modesty of the Commander-in-Chief, and advised, and blustered, and sneered, and disobeyed orders; daily presenting fresh obstacles (as if he had not enough otherwise!) in the path over which only Mr. Washington's astonishing endurance could have enabled him to march.

Whilst we were away on our South Carolina expedition, the famous Fourth of July had taken place, and we and the thirteen United States were parted for ever. My own native state of Virginia had also distinguished itself by announcing that all men are equally free; that all power is vested in the people, who have an inalienable right to alter, reform, or abolish their form of government at pleasure, and that the idea of an hereditary first magistrate is unnatural and absurd! Our General presented me with this document fresh from Williamsburg, as we were sailing northward by the Virginia capes, and, amidst not a little amusement and laughter, pointed out to me the faith to which, from the Fourth inst. inclusive, I was bound. There was no help for it; I was a Virginian—my godfathers had promised and vowed, in my name, that all men were equally free (including, of course, the race of poor Gumbo), that the idea of a monarchy is absurd, and that I had the right to alter my form of government at pleasure. I thought of Madam Esmond at home, and how she would look when these articles of faith were brought her to subscribe; how would Hagan receive them? He demolished them in a sermon, in which all the logic was on his side, but the U.S. Government has not, somehow, been affected by the discourse; and when he came to touch upon the point that all men being free, therefore Gumbo and Sady, and Nathan, had assuredly a right to go to Congress: "Tut, tut! my good Mr. Hagan," says my mother, "let us hear no more of this nonsense; but leave such wickedness and folly to the rebels!"

By the middle of August we were before New York, whither Mr. Howe had brought his army that had betaken itself to Halifax after its inglorious expulsion from Boston. The American Commander-in-Chief was at New York, and a great battle inevitable; and I looked forward to it with an inexpressible feeling of doubt and anxiety, knowing that my dearest brother and his regiment formed part of the troops whom we must attack, and could not but overpower. Almost the whole of the American army came over to fight on a small island, where every officer on both sides knew that they were to be beaten, and whence they had not a chance of escape. Two frigates, out of a hundred we had placed so as to command the enemy's entrenched camp and point of retreat across East River to New York, would have destroyed every bark in which he sought to fly, and compelled him to lay down his arms on shore. He fought: his hasty levies were utterly overthrown; some of his generals, his best troops, his artillery taken; the remnant huddled into their entrenched camp after their rout, the pursuers entering it with them. The victors were called back; the enemy was then pent up in a corner of the island, and could not escape. "They are at our mercy, and are ours to-morrow," says the gentle General. Not a ship was set to watch the American force; not a sentinel of ours could see a movement in their camp. A whole army crossed under our eyes in one single night to the mainland without the loss of a single man; and General Howe was suffered to remain in command after this feat, and to complete his glories of Long Island and Breed's Hill, at Philadelphia! A friend, to be sure, crossed in the night to say the enemy's army was being ferried over, but he fell upon a picket of Germans: they could not understand him: their commander was boozing or asleep. In the morning, when the spy was brought to some one who could comprehend the American language, the whole Continental force had crossed the East River, and the empire over thirteen colonies had slipped away.

The opinions I had about our chief were by no means uncommon in the army; though, perhaps, wisely kept secret by gentlemen under Mr. Howe's immediate command. Am I more unlucky than other folks, I wonder? or why are my imprudent sayings carried about more than my neighbours'? My rage that such a use was made of such a victory was no greater than that of scores of gentlemen with the army. Why must my name forsooth be given up to the Commander-in-Chief as that of the most guilty of the grumblers? Personally, General Howe was perfectly brave, amiable, and good-humoured.

"So, Sir George," says he, "you find fault with me, as a military man, because there was a fog after the battle on Long Island, and your friends, the Continentals, gave me the slip! Surely we took and killed enough of them; but there is no satisfying you gentlemen amateurs!" and he turned his back on me, and shrugged his shoulders, and talked to some one else. Amateur I might be, and he the most amiable of men; but if King George had said to him, "Never more be officer of mine," yonder agreeable and pleasant Cassio would most certainly have had his desert.

I soon found how our Chief had come in possession of his information regarding myself. My admirable cousin, Mr. William Esmond—who of course had forsaken New York and his post, when all the Royal authorities fled out of the place, and Washington occupied it,—returned along with our troops and fleets; and, being a gentleman of good birth and name, and well acquainted with the city, made himself agreeable to the newcomers of the Royal army, the young bloods, merry fellows, and macaronis, by introducing them to play-tables, taverns, and yet worse places, with which the worthy gentleman continued to be familiar in the New World as in the Old. Coelum non animum. However Will had changed his air, or whithersoever he transported his carcase, he carried a rascal in his skin.

I had heard a dozen stories of his sayings regarding my family, and was determined neither to avoid him nor seek him; but to call him to account whensoever we met; and, chancing one day to be at a coffee-house in a friend's company, my worthy kinsman swaggered in with a couple of young lads of the army, whom he found it was his pleasure and profit now to lead into every kind of dissipation. I happened to know one of Mr. Will's young companions, an aide-de-camp of General Clinton's, who had been in my close company both at Charleston, before Sullivan's Island, and in the action of Brooklyn, where our General gloriously led the right wing of the English army. They took a box without noticing us at first, though I heard my name three or four times mentioned by my brawling kinsman, who ended some drunken speech he was making by slapping his fist on the table, and swearing, "By——, I will do for him, and the bloody rebel, his brother!"

"Ah! Mr. Esmond," says I, coming forward with my hat on. (He looked a little pale behind his punch-bowl.) "I have long wanted to see you, to set some little matters right about which there has been a difference between us."

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

"You have chosen to cast a doubt upon my courage, and say that I shirked a meeting with you when we were young men. Our relationship and our age ought to prevent us from having recourse to such murderous follies" (Mr. Will started up, looking fierce and relieved), "but I give you notice, that though I can afford to overlook lies against myself, if I hear from you a word in disparagement of my brother, Colonel Warrington, of the Continental Army, I will hold you accountable."

"Indeed, gentlemen! Mighty fine, indeed! You take notice of Sir George Warrington's words!" cries Mr. Will over his punch-bowl.

"You have been pleased to say," I continued, growing angry as I spoke, and being a fool therefore for my pains, "that the very estates we hold in this country are not ours, but of right revert to your family!"

"So they are ours! By George, they're ours! I've heard my brother Castlewood say so a score of times!" swears Mr. Will.

"In that case, sir," says I, hotly, "your brother, my Lord Castlewood, tells no more truth than yourself. We have the titles at hone in Virginia. They are registered in the courts there; and if ever I hear one word more of this impertinence, I shall call you to account where no constables will be at hand to interfere!"

"I wonder," cries Will, in a choking voice, "that I don't cut him into twenty thousand pieces as he stands there before me with his confounded yellow face. It was my brother Castlewood won his money—no, it was his brother; d—— you, which are you, the rebel or the other? I hate the ugly faces of both of you, and, hic!—if you are for the King, show you are for the King, and drink his health!" and he sank down into his box with a hiccup and a wild laugh, which he repeated a dozen times, with a hundred more oaths and vociferous outcries that I should drink the King's health.

To reason with a creature in this condition, or ask explanations or apologies from him, was absurd. I left Mr. Will to reel to his lodgings under the care of his young friends—who were surprised to find an old toper so suddenly affected and so utterly prostrated by liquor—and limped home to my wife, whom I found happy in possession of a brief letter from Hal, which a countryman had brought in; and who said not a word about the affairs of the Continentals with whom he was engaged, but wrote a couple of pages of rapturous eulogiums upon his brother's behaviour in the field, which my dear Hal was pleased to admire, as he admired everything I said and did.

I rather looked for a messenger from my amiable kinsman in consequence of the speeches which had passed between us the night before, and did not know but that I might be called by Will to make my words good; and when accordingly Mr. Lacy (our companion of the previous evening) made his appearance at an early hour of the forenoon, I was beckoning my Lady Warrington to leave us, when, with a laugh and a cry of "Oh dear, no!" Mr. Lacy begged her ladyship not to disturb herself.

"I have seen," says he, "a gentleman who begs to send you his apologies if he uttered a word last night which could offend you."

"What apologies? what words?" asks the anxious wife.

I explained that roaring Will Esmond had met me in a coffee-house on the previous evening, and quarrelled with me, as he had done with hundreds before. "It appears the fellow is constantly abusive, and invariably pleads drunkenness, and apologises the next morning, unless he is caned over-night," remarked Captain Lacy. And my lady, I dare say, makes a little sermon, and asks why we gentlemen will go to idle coffee-houses and run the risk of meeting roaring, roystering Will Esmonds?

Our sojourn in New York was enlivened by a project for burning the city which some ardent patriots entertained and partially executed. Several such schemes were laid in the course of the war, and each one of the principal cities was doomed to fire; though, in the interests of peace and goodwill, I hope it will be remembered that these plans never originated with the cruel government of a tyrant king, but were always proposed by gentlemen on the Continental side, who vowed that, rather than remain under the ignominious despotism of the ruffian of Brunswick, the fairest towns of America should burn. I presume that the sages who were for burning down Boston were not actual proprietors in that place, and the New York burners might come from other parts of the country—from Philadelphia, or what not. Howbeit, the British spared you, gentlemen, and we pray you give us credit for this act of moderation.

I had not the fortune to be present in the action on the White Plains, being detained by the hurt which I had received at Long Island, and which broke out again and again, and took some time in the healing. The tenderest of nurses watched me through my tedious malady, and was eager for the day when I should doff my militia coat and return to the quiet English home where Hetty and our good General were tending our children. Indeed I don't know that I have yet forgiven myself for the pains and terrors that I must have caused my poor wife, by keeping her separate from her young ones, and away from her home, because, forsooth, I wished to see a little more of the war then going on. Our grand tour in Europe had been all very well. We had beheld St. Peter's at Rome, and the Bishop thereof; the Dauphiness of France (alas, to think that glorious head should ever have been brought so low!) at Paris; and the rightful King of England at Florence. I had dipped my gout in a half-dozen baths and spas, and played cards in a hundred courts, as my Travels in Europe (which I propose to publish after my completion of the History of the American War) will testify. [Neither of these two projected works of Sir George Warrington were brought, as it appears, to a completion.] And, during our peregrinations, my hypochondria diminished (which plagued me woefully at home); and my health and spirits visibly improved. Perhaps it was because she saw the evident benefit I had from excitement and change, that my wife was reconciled to my continuing to enjoy them; and though secretly suffering pangs at being away from her nursery and her eldest boy (for whom she ever has had an absurd infatuation), the dear hypocrite scarce allowed a look of anxiety to appear on her face; encouraged me with smiles; professed herself eager to follow me; asked why it should be a sin in me to covet honour? and, in a word, was ready to stay, to go, to smile, to be sad; to scale mountains, or to go down to the sea in ships; to say that cold was pleasant, heat tolerable, hunger good sport, dirty lodgings delightful; though she is wretched sailor, very delicate about the little she eats, and an extreme sufferer both of cold and heat. Hence, as I willed to stay on yet a while on my native continent, she was certain nothing was so good for me; and when I was minded to return home—oh, how she brightened, and kissed her infant, and told him how he should see the beautiful gardens at home, and Aunt Theo, and grandpapa, and his sister, and Miles. "Miles!" cries the little parrot, mocking its mother—and crowing; as if there was any mighty privilege in seeing Mr. Miles, forsooth, who was under Doctor Sumner's care at Harrow-on-the-Hill, where, to do the gentleman justice, he showed that he could eat more tarts than any boy in the school, and took most creditable prizes at football and hare-and-hounds.



CHAPTER XCI. Satis Pugnae

It has always seemed to me (I speak under the correction of military gentlemen) that the entrenchments of Breed's Hill served the Continental army throughout the whole of our American war. The slaughter inflicted upon us from behind those lines was so severe, and the behaviour of the enemy so resolute, that the British chiefs respected the barricades of the Americans hereafter; and were they firing from behind a row of blankets, certain of our generals rather hesitated to force them. In the affair of the White Plains, when, for a second time, Mr. Washington's army was quite at the mercy of the victors, we subsequently heard that our conquering troops were held back before a barricade actually composed of cornstalks and straw. Another opportunity was given us, and lasted during a whole winter, during which the dwindling and dismayed troops of Congress lay starving and unarmed under our grasp, and the magnanimous Mr. Howe left the famous camp of Valley Forge untouched, whilst his great, brave, and perfectly appointed army fiddled and gambled and feasted in Philadelphia. And, by Byng's countrymen, triumphal arches were erected, tournaments were held in pleasant mockery of the middle ages, and wreaths and garlands offered by beautiful ladies to this clement chief, with fantastical mottoes and posies announcing that his laurels should be immortal! Why have my ungrateful countrymen in America never erected statues to this general? They had not in all their army an officer who fought their battles better; who enabled them to retrieve their errors with such adroitness; who took care that their defeats should be so little hurtful to themselves; and when, in the course of events, the stronger force naturally got the uppermost, who showed such an untiring tenderness, patience, and complacency in helping the poor disabled opponent on to his legs again. Ah! think of eighteen years before and the fiery young warrior whom England had sent out to fight her adversary on the American continent. Fancy him for ever pacing round the defences behind which the foe lies sheltered; by night and by day alike sleepless and eager; consuming away in his fierce wrath and longing, and never closing his eye, so intent is it in watching; winding the track with untiring scent that pants and hungers for blood and battle; prowling through midnight forests, or climbing silent over precipices before dawn; and watching till his great heart is almost worn out, until the foe shows himself at last, when he springs on him and grapples with him, and, dying, slays him! Think of Wolfe at Quebec, and hearken to Howe's fiddles as he sits smiling amongst the dancers at Philadelphia!

A favourite scheme with our ministers at home and some of our generals in America, was to establish a communication between Canada and New York, by which means it was hoped New England might be cut off from the neighbouring colonies, overpowered in detail, and forced into submission. Burgoyne was entrusted with the conduct of the plan, and he set forth from Quebec, confidently promising to bring it to a successful issue. His march began in military state: the trumpets of his proclamations blew before him; he bade the colonists to remember the immense power of England; and summoned the misguided rebels to lay down their arms. He brought with him a formidable English force, an army of German veterans not less powerful, a dreadful band of Indian warriors, and a brilliant train of artillery. It was supposed that the people round his march would rally to the Royal cause and standards. The Continental force in front of him was small at first, and Washington's army was weakened by the withdrawal of troops who were hurried forward to meet this Canadian invasion. A British detachment from New York was to force its way up the Hudson, sweeping away the enemy on the route, and make a junction with Burgoyne at Albany. Then was the time when Washington's weakened army should have been struck too; but a greater Power willed otherwise: nor am I, for one, even going to regret the termination of the war. As we look over the game now, how clear seem the blunders which were made by the losing side! From the beginning to the end we were for ever arriving too late. Our supplies and reinforcements from home were too late. Our troops were in difficulty, and our succours reached them too late. Our fleet appeared off York Town just too late, after Cornwallis had surrendered. A way of escape was opened to Burgoyne, but he resolved upon retreat too late. I have heard discomfited officers in after days prove infallibly how a different wind would have saved America to us; how we must have destroyed the French fleet but for a tempest or two; how once, twice, thrice, but for nightfall, Mr. Washington and his army were in our power. Who has not speculated, in the course of his reading of history, upon the "Has been" and the "Might have been" in the world? I take my tattered old map-book from the shelf, and see the board on which the great contest was played; I wonder at the curious chances which lost it: and, putting aside any idle talk about the respective bravery of the two nations, can't but see that we had the best cards, and that we lost the game.

I own the sport had a considerable fascination for me, and stirred up my languid blood. My brother Hal, when settled on his plantation in Virginia, was perfectly satisfied with the sports and occupations he found there. The company of the country neighbours sufficed him; he never tired of looking after his crops and people, taking his fish, shooting his ducks, hunting in his woods, or enjoying his rubber and his supper. Happy Hal, in his great barn of a house, under his roomy porches, his dogs lying round his feet; his friends, the Virginian Will Wimbles, at free quarters in his mansion; his negroes fat, lazy, and ragged: his shrewd little wife ruling over them and her husband, who always obeyed her implicitly when living, and who was pretty speedily consoled when she died! I say happy, though his lot would have been intolerable to me: wife, and friends, and plantation, and town life at Richmond (Richmond succeeded to the honour of being the capital when our Province became a State). How happy he whose foot fits the shoe which fortune gives him! My income was five times as great, my house in England as large, and built of bricks and faced with freestone; my wife—would I have changed her for any other wife in the world? My children—well, I am contented with my Lady Warrington's opinion about them. But with all these plums and peaches and rich fruits out of Plenty's horn poured into my lap, I fear I have been but an ingrate; and Hodge, my gatekeeper, who shares his bread and scrap of bacon with a family as large as his master's, seems to me to enjoy his meal as much as I do, though Mrs. Molly prepares her best dishes and sweetmeats, and Mr. Gumbo uncorks the choicest bottle from the cellar. Ah me! sweetmeats have lost their savour for me, however they may rejoice my young ones from the nursery, and the perfume of claret palls upon old noses! Our parson has poured out his sermons many and many a time to me, and perhaps I did not care for them much when he first broached them. Dost thou remember, honest friend? (sure he does, for he has repeated the story over the bottle as many times as his sermons almost, and my Lady Warrington pretends as if she had never heard it)—I say, Joe Blake, thou rememberest full well, and with advantages, that October evening when we scrambled up an embrasure at Fort Clinton and a clubbed musket would have dashed these valuable brains out, had not Joe's sword whipped my rebellious countryman through the gizzard. Joe wore a red coat in those days (the uniform of the brave Sixty-third, whose leader, the bold Sill, fell pierced with many wounds beside him). He exchanged his red for black and my pulpit. His doctrines are sound, and his sermons short. We read the papers together over our wine. Not two months ago we read our old friend Howe's glorious deed of the first of June. We were told how the noble Rawdon, who fought with us at Fort Clinton, had joined the Duke of York: and to-day his Royal Highness is in full retreat before Pichegru: and he and my son Miles have taken Valenciennes for nothing! Ah, parson! would you not like to put on your old Sixty-third coat? (though I doubt Mrs. Blake could never make the buttons and button-holes meet again over your big body). The boys were acting a play with my militia sword. Oh, that I were young again, Mr. Blake! that I had not the gout in my toe; and I would saddle Rosinante and ride back into the world, and feel the pulses beat again, and play a little of life's glorious game!

The last "hit" which I saw played, was gallantly won by our side; though 'tis true that even in this parti the Americans won the rubber—our people gaining only the ground they stood on, and the guns, stores, and ships which they captured and destroyed, whilst our efforts at rescue were too late to prevent the catastrophe impending over Burgoyne's unfortunate army. After one of those delays which always were happening to retard our plans and weaken the blows which our chiefs intended to deliver, an expedition was got under weigh from New York at the close of the month of September, '77; that, could it have but advanced a fortnight earlier, might have saved the doomed force of Burgoyne. Sed Dis aliter visum. The delay here was not Sir Henry Clinton's fault, who could not leave his city unprotected; but the winds and weather which delayed the arrival of reinforcements which we had long awaited from England. The fleet which brought them brought us long and fond letters from home, with the very last news of the children under the care of their good Aunt Hetty and their grandfather. The mother's heart yearned towards the absent young ones. She made me no reproaches: but I could read her importunities in her anxious eyes, her terrors for me, and her longing for her children. "Why stay longer?" she seemed to say. "You who have no calling to this war, or to draw the sword against your countrymen—why continue to imperil your life and my happiness?" I understood her appeal. We were to enter upon no immediate service of danger; I told her Sir Henry was only going to accompany the expedition for a part of the way. I would return with him, the reconnaissance over, and Christmas, please Heaven, should see our family once more united in England.

A force of three thousand men, including a couple of slender regiments of American Loyalists and New York Militia (with which latter my distinguished relative, Mr. Will Esmond, went as captain), was embarked at New York, and our armament sailed up the noble Hudson River, that presents finer aspects than the Rhine in Europe to my mind: nor was any fire opened upon us from those beetling cliffs and precipitous "palisades," as they are called, by which we sailed; the enemy, strange to say, being for once unaware of the movement we contemplated. Our first landing was on the Eastern bank, at a place called Verplancks Point, whence the Congress troops withdrew after a slight resistance, their leader, the tough old Putnam (so famous during the war) supposing that our march was to be directed towards the Eastern Highlands, by which we intended to penetrate to Burgoyne. Putnam fell back to occupy these passes, a small detachment of ours being sent forward as if in pursuit, which he imagined was to be followed by the rest of our force. Meanwhile, before daylight, two thousand men without artillery, were carried over to Stoney Point on the Western shore, opposite Verplancks, and under a great hill called the Dunderberg by the old Dutch lords of the stream, and which hangs precipitously over it. A little stream at the northern base of this mountain intersects it from the opposite height on which Fort Clinton stood, named not after our general, but after one of the two gentlemen of the same name, who were amongst the oldest and most respected of the provincial gentry of New York, and who were at this moment actually in command against Sir Henry. On the next height to Clinton is Fort Montgomery; and behind them rises a hill called Bear Hill; whilst at the opposite side of the magnificent stream stands "Saint Antony's Nose," a prodigious peak indeed, which the Dutch had quaintly christened.

The attacks on the two forts were almost simultaneous. Half our men were detached for the assault on Fort Montgomery, under the brave Campbell, who fell before the rampart. Sir Henry, who would never be out of danger where he could find it, personally led the remainder, and hoped, he said, that we should have better luck than before the Sullivan Island. A path led up to the Dunderberg, so narrow as scarcely to admit three men abreast, and in utter silence our whole force scaled it, wondering at every rugged step to meet with no opposition. The enemy had not even kept a watch on it; nor were we descried until we were descending the height, at the base of which we easily dispersed a small force sent hurriedly to oppose us. The firing which here took place rendered all idea of a surprise impossible. The fort was before us. With such arms as the troops had in their hands, they had to assault; and silently and swiftly, in the face of the artillery playing upon them, the troops ascended the hill. The men had orders on no account to fire. Taking the colours of the Sixty-third, and bearing them aloft, Sir Henry mounted with the stormers. The place was so steep that the men pushed each other over the wall and through the embrasures; and it was there that Lieutenant Joseph Blake, the father of a certain Joseph Clinton Blake, who looks with the eyes of affection on a certain young lady, presented himself to the living of Warrington by saving the life of the unworthy patron thereof.