This made the prince halt, not knowing what the case was or how strong we were, and, to get better intelligence, sent two hundred horse to surround or skirt the wood and beat up our quarter, and in the interim the Count de Tesse appeared in his rear. We found the strait he was in by the noise of our own troops at a distance; so we resolved to engage the two hundred horse immediately. Accordingly our little troop of horse drew up in the entrance of the lane and offered to skirmish, and our foot, lying behind the hedge which went round the wood, stood ready to act as occasion should offer. The horse, being attacked, gave way, and retired into the lane; but the Germans were too old for us there. They contented themselves to push us to the entrance, but would not be drawn into a narrow pass without knowing whether the hedges were lined or no.But the prince, finding the French in his rear, and not being strong enough to engage again, resolved to force his way through, and commanded his dragoons to alight and enter the wood, to clear the hedges on either side the lane, that he might pass with his cavalry. This they did so vigorously, and were so much too strong for us, that though we made good our ground a long time, yet our men were almost half of them cut in pieces. However, we gave time to the French cavalry to come up, and to fall on the prince’s troops and cut them off, and take a great many prisoners, and then we retreated in our turn, opening a gap for our own horse to break in. Three hundred of the dragoons were killed, and two hundred of them taken prisoners.In the first heat of this action, a German officer of dragoons, well followed, had knocked down three men that stood next me; and, offering me quarter, I was obliged to accept it, and gave him my sword; for our men were upon the point of quitting their post and shifting every one as they could. But the scale was turned, for our cavalry breaking in, as above, the dragoons went to wreck, and the officer who had me prisoner, turning to me, said, “We are all lost.” I asked him if I could serve him. “Stand still a little,” says he; for his men fought most desperately indeed. But about two hundred French horse appearing in his rear too, he said to me in French, “I will be your prisoner,” and returning me my sword, gave me also his own. A dragoon that stood near him was just going to do the like, when he was shot dead, and the horse coming up, the field was cleared in an instant. But Prince Commercy went off with the rest of his party, and was pursued no farther.There were sixteen or seventeen of our men released, as I was, from being taken; but they had not the luck I had, to take the officer that had them in keeping. He had been so generous to me as not to ask what money I had about me, though I had not much if he had. But I lost by his civility, for then I could not have the assurance to ask him for his money, though I understood he had near a hundred pistoles about him. But he very handsomely at night, when we came to our tents, made me a present of twenty pistoles, and in return I obtained leave for him to go to Prince Eugene’s camp upon his parole, which he did, and so got himself exchanged.It was after this campaign that I was quartered at Cremona, when the action happened there of which I have spoken already, and where our Irish regiment did such service that they saved the town from being really surprised, and indeed beat the Germans out again, after they had been masters of three-quarters of the town six hours, and by which they gained a very great reputation.But I hasten on to my own history, for I am not writing a journal of the wars, in which I had no long share.The summer after this our two Irish regiments were drawn out into the field, and had many a sore brush with the Germans; for Prince Eugene, a vigilant general, gave us little rest, and gained many advantages by his continual moving up and down, harassing his own men and ours too; and whoever will do the French justice, and knew how they had behaved, must acknowledge they never declined the Germans, but fought them upon all occasions with the utmost resolution and courage; and though it cost the blood of an infinite number of fine gentlemen, as well as private soldiers, yet the Duke de Vendôme, who now commanded, though King Philip was himself in the army this campaign, made the Prince of Savoy a full return in his own kind, and drove him from post to post, till he was just at the point of quitting the whole country of Italy. All that gallant army Prince Eugene brought with him into Italy, which was the best without doubt, for the goodness of the troops, that ever were there, laid their bones in that country, and many thousands more after them, till, the affairs of France declining in other places, they were forced in their turn to give way to their fate, as may be seen in the histories of those times, as above. But it is none of my business.The part that I bore in these affairs was but short and sharp. We took the field about the beginning of July 1702, and the Duke de Vendôme ordered the whole army to draw the sooner together, in order to relieve the city of Mantua, which was blocked up by the imperialists.Prince Eugene was a politic, and indeed a fortunate, prince, and had the year before pushed our army upon many occasions. But his good fortune began to fail him a little this year, for our army was not only more numerous than his, but the duke was in the field before him; and as the prince had held Mantua closely blocked up all the winter, the duke resolved to relieve the town, cost what it would. As I said, the duke was first in the field; the prince was in no condition to prevent his raising the blockade by force; so he drew off his troops, and leaving several strong bodies of troops to protect Bersello, which the Duke de Vendôme threatened, and Borgo Fort, where his magazine lay, he drew all the rest of his forces together, to make head against us. By this time the king of Spain was come into the army, and the Duke de Vendôme lay with about thirty-five thousand men near Luzara, which he had resolved to attack, to bring Prince Eugene to a battle. The Prince of Vaudemont lay intrenched with twenty thousand more at Rivalto, behind Mantua, to cover the frontiers of Milan, and there was near twelve thousand in Mantua itself; and Monsieur Pracontal lay with ten thousand men just under the cannon of one of the forts which guard the causeway which leads into the city of Mantua; so that, had all these joined, as they would have done in a few days more, the prince must have been put to his shifts, and would have had enough to do to have maintained himself in Italy; for he was master of no one place in the country that could have held out a formal siege of fifteen days’ open trenches, and he knew all this very well; and therefore it seems, while the Duke of Vendôme resolved, if possible, to bring him to a battle, and to that end made dispositions to attack Luzara, we were surprised to find, the 15th of June 1702, the whole imperial army appeared inbattalia, and in full march, to attack us.As it happened, our army was all marching in columns towards them, as we had done for two days before; and I should have told you that, three days before, the duke having noticed that General Visconti, with three imperial regiments of horse and one of dragoons, was posted at San-Victoria, on the Tessona, he resolved to attack them; and this design was carried so secretly, that while Monsieur Visconti, though our army was three leagues another way, was passing towards the Modenese, he found himself unexpectedly attacked by six thousand horse and dragoons of the French army. He defended himself very bravely for near an hour; when, being overpowered, and finding he should be forced into disorder, he sounded a retreat. But the squadrons had not faced about to make their retreat scarce a quarter of an hour, when they found themselves surrounded with a great body of infantry, who had entirely cut off their retreat, except over the bridge of Tessona, which being thronged with their baggage, they could neither get backward or forward; so they thrust and tumbled over one another in such a manner that they could preserve no kind of order; but abundance fell into the river and were drowned, many were killed, and more taken prisoners; so that, in a word, the whole three regiments of horse and one of dragoons were entirely defeated.This was a great blow to the prince, because they were some of the choicest troops of his whole army. We took about four hundred prisoners, and all their baggage, which was a very considerable booty, and about eight hundred horses; and no doubt these troops were very much wanted in the battle that ensued on the 15th, as I have said. Our army being in full march, as above, to attack Luzara, a party of Germans appeared, being about six hundred horse, and in less than an hour more their whole army, in order of battle.Our army formed immediately, and the duke posted the regiments as they came up so much to their advantage that Prince Eugene was obliged to alter his dispositions, and had this particular inconvenience upon his hands, viz., to attack an army superior to his own, in all their most advantageous posts; whereas, had he thought fit to have waited but one day, we should have met him half-way. But this was owing to the pride of the German generals, and their being so opinionated of the goodness of their troops. The royal army was posted with the left to the great river Po, on the other side of which the Prince of Vaudemont’s army lay cannonading the intrenchments which the imperialists had made at Borgo Fort; and hearing that there was like to be a general battle, he detached twelve battalions and about a thousand horse, to reinforce the royal army; all which, to our great encouragement, had time to join the army, while Prince Eugene was making his new dispositions for the attack. And yet it was the coming of these troops which caused Prince Eugene to resolve to begin the fight, expecting to have come to an action before they could come up. But he was disappointed in the reason of fighting, and yet was obliged to fight too, which was an error in the prince that it was too late to retrieve.It was five o’clock in the evening before he could bring up his whole line to engage; and then, after having cannonaded us to no great purpose for half-an-hour, his right, commanded by the Prince de Commercy, attacked our left wing with great fury. Our men received them so well and seconded one another so punctually that they were repulsed with a very great slaughter; and the Prince de Commercy being, unhappily for them, killed in the first onset, the regiments, for want of orders, and surprised with the fall of so great a man, were pushed into disorder, and one whole brigade was entirely broke.But their second line, advancing under General Herbeville, restored things in the first. The battalions rallied, and they came boldly on to charge a second time, and being seconded with new reinforcements from their main body, our men had their turn, and were pushed to a canal which lay on their left flank between them and the Po, behind which they rallied; and being supported by new troops, as well horse as foot, they fought on both sides with the utmost obstinacy, and with such courage and skill that it was not possible to judge who should have had the better could they have been able to have fought it out.On the right of the royal army was posted the flower of the French cavalry—namely, the gendarmes, the royal carbineers, and the queen’s horse-guards, with four hundred horse more—and next them the infantry, among which were our brigade. The horse advanced first to charge, and they carried all before them sword in hand, receiving the fire of two imperial regiments of cuirassiers without firing a shot, and falling in among them, bore them down by the strength of their horses, putting them into confusion, and left so clear a field for us to follow that the first line of our infantry stood drawn up upon the ground which the enemy at first possessed.In this first attack the Marquis de Crequi, who commanded the whole right wing, was killed—a loss which fully balanced the death of the Prince de Commercy on the side of the Germans. After we had thus pushed the enemy’s cavalry, as above, their troops, being rallied by the dexterity of their generals and supported by three imperial regiments of foot, came on again to the charge with such fury that nothing could withstand them. And here two battalions of our Irish regiments were put into disorder, and abundance of our men killed; and here also I had the misfortune to receive a musket-shot, which broke my left arm; and that was not all, for I was knocked down by a giant-like German soldier, who, when he thought he had killed me, set his foot upon me, but was immediately shot dead by one of my men, and fell just upon me, which, my arm being broken, was a very great mischief to me; for the very weight of the fellow, who was almost as big as a horse, was such that I was not able to stir.Our men were beaten back after this from the place where they stood; and so I was left in possession of the enemy, but was not their prisoner—that is to say, was not found till next morning, when a party being sent, as usual, with surgeons to look after the wounded men among the dead, found me almost smothered with the dead Germans and others that lay near me. However, to do them justice, they used me with humanity, and the surgeons set my arm very skilfully and well; and four or five days after, I had liberty to go to Parma upon parole.Both the armies continued fighting, especially on our left, till it was so dark that it was impossible to know who they fired at, or for the generals to see what they did; so they abated firing gradually, and, as it may be truly said, the night parted them.Both sides claimed the victory, and both concealed their losses as much as it was possible; but it is certain that never battle was fought with greater bravery and obstinacy than this was; and had there been daylight to have fought it out, doubtless there would have been many thousand more men killed on both sides.All the Germans had to entitle them to the victory was, that they made our left retire, as I have said, to the canal, and to the high banks or mounds on the edge of the Po; but they had so much advantage in the retreat—they fired from thence among the thickest of the enemy, and could never be forced from their posts.The best testimony the royal army had of the victory, and which was certainly the better of the two, was, that, two days after the fight, they attacked Guastalia, as it were in view of the German army, and forced the garrison to surrender, and to swear not to serve again for six months, which, they being fifteen hundred men, was a great loss to the Germans; and yet Prince Eugene did not offer to relieve it. And after that we took several other posts which the imperialists had possession of, but were obliged to quit them upon the approach of the French army, not being in a condition to fight another battle that year.My campaign was now at an end, and though I came lame off, I came off much better than abundance of gentlemen; for in that bloody battle we had above four hundred officers killed or wounded, whereof three were general officers.The campaign held on till December, and the Duke de Vendôme took Borgo Fort and several other places from the Germans, who, in short, lost ground every day in Italy. I was a prisoner a great while, and there being no cartel settled, Prince Eugene ordered the French prisoners to be sent into Hungary, which was a cruelty that could not be reasonably exercised on them. However, a great many, by that banishment, found means to make their escape to the Turks, by whom they were kindly received, and the French ambassador at Constantinople took care of them, and shipped them back again into Italy at the king’s charge.But the Duke de Vendôme now took so many German prisoners that Prince Eugene was tired of sending his prisoners to Hungary, and was obliged to be at the charge of bringing some of them back again whom he had sent thither, and come to agree to a general exchange of prisoners.I was, as I have said, allowed for a time to go to Parma upon my parole, where I continued for the recovery of my wound and broken arm forty days, and was then obliged to render myself to the commanding officer at Ferrara, where Prince Eugene coming soon after, I was, with several other prisoners of war, sent away into the Milanese, to be kept for an exchange of prisoners.It was in the city of Trent that I continued about eight months. The man in whose house I quartered was exceedingly civil to me, and took a great deal of care of me, and I lived very easy. Here I contracted a kind of familiarity, perfectly undesigned by me, with the daughter of the burgher at whose house I had lodged, and, I know not by what fatality that was upon me, I was prevailed with afterwards to marry her. This was a piece of honesty on my side which I must acknowledge I never intended to be guilty of; but the girl was too cunning for me, for she found means to get some wine into my head more than I used to drink, and though I was not so disordered with it but that I knew very well what I did, yet in an unusual height of good humour I consented to be married. This impolitic piece of honesty put me to many inconveniences, for I knew not what to do with this clog which I had loaded myself with. I could neither stay with her or take her with me, so that I was exceedingly perplexed.The time came soon after that I was released by the cartel, and so was obliged to go to my regiment, which then was in quarters in the Milanese, and from thence I got leave to go to Paris, upon my promise to raise some recruits in England for the Irish regiments, by the help of my correspondence there. Having thus leave to go to Paris, I took a passport from the enemy’s army to go to Trent, and making a long circuit, I went back thither, and very honestly packed up my baggage, wife and all, and brought her away through Tyrol into Bavaria, and so through Suabia and the Black Forest into Alsatia; from thence I came into Lorraine, and so to Paris.I had now a secret design to quit the war, for I really had had enough of fighting. But it was counted so dishonourable a thing to quit while the army was in the field that I could not dispense with it; but an intervening accident made that part easy to me. The war was now renewed between France and England and Holland, just as it was before; and the French king, meditating nothing more than how to give the English a diversion, fitted out a strong squadron of men-of-war and frigates at Dunkirk, on board of which he embarked a body of troops of about six thousand five hundred men, besides volunteers; and the new king, as we called him, though more generally he was called the Chevalier de St. George, was shipped along with them, and all for Scotland.I pretended a great deal of zeal for this service, and that if I might be permitted to sell my company in the Irish regiment I was in, and have the chevalier’s brevet for a colonel, in case of raising troops for him in Great Britain after his arrival, I would embark volunteer and serve at my own expense. The latter gave me a great advantage with the chevalier; for now I was esteemed as a man of consideration, and one that must have a considerable interest in my own country. So I obtained leave to sell my company, and having had a good round sum of money remitted me from London, by the way of Holland, I prepared a very handsome equipage, and away I went to Dunkirk to embark.I was very well received by the chevalier; and as he had an account that I was an officer in the Irish brigade, and had served in Italy, and consequently was an old soldier, all this added to the character which I had before, and made me have a great deal of honour paid me, though at the same time I had no particular attachment to his person or to his cause. Nor indeed did I much consider the cause of one side or other. If I had, I should hardly have risked, not my life only, but effects too, which were all, as I might say, from that moment forfeited to the English government, and were too evidently in their power to confiscate at their pleasure.However, having just received a remittance from London of £300 sterling, and sold my company in the Irish regiment for very near as much, I was not only insensibly drawn in, but was perfectly volunteer in that dull cause, and away I went with them at all hazards. It belongs very little to my history to give an account of that fruitless expedition, only to tell you that, being so closely and effectually chased by the English fleet, which was superior in force to the French, I may say that, in escaping them, I escaped being hanged.It was the good fortune of the French that they overshot the port they aimed at, and intending for the Frith of Forth, or, as it is called, the Frith of Edinburgh, the first land they made was as far north as a place called Montrose, where it was not their business to land, and so they were obliged to come back to the frith, and were gotten to the entrance of it, and came to an anchor for the tide. But this delay or hindrance gave time to the English, under Sir George Byng, to come to the frith, and they came to an anchor, just as we did, only waiting to go up the frith with the flood.Had we not overshot the port, as above, all our squadron had been destroyed in two days, and all we could have done had been to have gotten into the pier or haven at Leith with the smaller frigates, and have landed the troops and ammunition; but we must have set fire to the men-of-war, for the English squadron was not above twenty-four hours behind us, or thereabout.Upon this surprise, the French admiral set sail from the north point of the frith where we lay, and crowding away to the north, got the start of the English fleet, and made their escape, with the loss of one ship only, which, being behind the rest, could not get away.When we were satisfied the English left chasing us, which was not till the third night, when we altered our course and lost sight of them, we stood over to the coast of Norway, and keeping that shore on board all the way to the mouth of the Baltic, we came to an anchor again, and sent two scouts abroad to learn news, to see if the sea was clear; and being satisfied that the enemy did not chase us, we kept on with an easier sail, and came all back again to Dunkirk; and glad I was to set my foot on shore again; for all the while we were thus flying for our lives I was under the greatest terror imaginable, and nothing but halters and gibbets run in my head, concluding that, if I had been taken, I should certainly have been hanged.But the care was now over. I took my leave of the chevalier, and of the army, and made haste to Paris. I came so unexpectedly to Paris, and to my own lodgings, that it was my misfortune to make a discovery relating to my wife which was not at all to my satisfaction; for I found her ladyship had kept some company that I had reason to believe were not such as an honest woman ought to have conversed with, and as I knew her temper by what I had found of her myself, I grew very jealous and uneasy about her. I must own it touched me very nearly, for I began to have an extraordinary value for her, and her behaviour was very taking, especially after I had brought her into France; but having a vein of levity, it was impossible to prevent her running into such things in a town so full of what they call gallantry as Paris.It vexed me also to think that it should be my fate to be a cuckold both abroad and at home, and sometimes I would be in such a rage about it that I had no government of myself when I thought of it. Whole days, and I may say sometimes whole nights, I spent musing and considering what I should do to her, and especially what I should do to the villain, whoever he was, that had thus abused and supplanted me. Here indeed I committed murder more than once, or indeed than a hundred times, in my imagination; and, as the devil is certainly an apparent prompter to wickedness, if he is not the first mover of it in our minds, he teased me night and day with proposals to kill my wife.This horrid project he carried up so high, by raising fierce thoughts and fomenting the blood upon my contemplation of the word cuckold, that, in short, I left debating whether I should murder her or no, as a thing out of the question, and determined; and my thoughts were then taken up only with the management how I should kill her, and how to make my escape after I had done it.All this while I had no sufficient evidence of her guilt, neither had I so much as charged her with it or let her know I suspected her, otherwise than as she might perceive it in my conduct, and in the change of my behaviour to her, which was such that she could not but perceive that something troubled me. Yet she took no notice of it to me, but received me very well, and showed herself to be glad of my return. Nor did I find she had been extravagant in her expenses while I was abroad. But jealousy, as the wise man says, is the wrath of a man; her being so good a hussy at what money I had left her gave my distempered fancy an opinion that she had been maintained by other people, and so had had no occasion to spend.I must confess she had a difficult point here upon her, though she had been really honest; for, as my head was prepossessed of her dishonesty, if she had been lavish I should have said she had spent it upon her gentlemen; and as she had been frugal, I said she had been maintained by them. Thus, I say, my head was distempered; I believed myself abused, and nothing could put it out of my thoughts night or day.All this while it was not visibly broken out between us; but I was so fully possessed with the belief of it that I seemed to want no evidence, and I looked with an evil eye upon everybody that came near her or that she conversed with. There was an officer of the Guards du Corps that lodged in the same house with us, a very honest gentleman and a man of quality. I happened to be in a little drawing-room adjoining to a parlour where my wife sat at that time, and this gentleman came into the parlour, which, as he was one of the family, he might have done without offence; but he, not knowing that I was in the drawing-room, sat down and talked with my wife. I heard every word they said, for the door between us was open; nor could I say that there passed anything between them but cursory discourse. They talked of casual things, of a young lady, a burgher’s daughter of nineteen, that had been married the week before to an advocate in the Parliament of Paris, vastly rich, and about sixty-three; and of another, a widow lady of fortune in Paris, that had married her deceased husband’svalet de chamber; and of such casual matters, that I could find no fault with her now at all.But it filled my head with jealous thoughts and fired my temper. Now I fancied he used too much freedom with her, then that she used too much freedom to him, and once or twice I was upon the point of breaking in upon them and affronting them both, but I restrained myself. At length he talked some thing merrily of the lady throwing away her maiden head, as I understood it, upon an old man; but still it was nothing indecent. But I, who was all on fire already, could bear it no longer, but started up and came into the room, and catching at my wife’s words, “Say you so, madam?” said I. “Was he too old for her?” and giving the officer a look that I fancy was something akin to the face on the sign called the Bull and Mouth, within Aldersgate, I went out into the street.The marquis—so he was styled—a man of honour and of spirit too, took it as I meant it, and followed me in a moment and “hemmed” after me in the street; upon which I stopped, and he came up to me. “Sir,” said he, “our circumstances are very unhappy in France, that we cannot do ourselves justice here without the most severe treatment in the world. But, come on it what will, you must explain yourself to me on the subject of your behaviour just now.”I was a little cooled as to the point of my conduct to him in the very few moments that had passed, and was very sensible that I was wrong to him; and I said, therefore, to him, very frankly, “Sir, you are a gentleman whom I know very well, and I have a very great respect for you; but I had been disturbed a little about the conduct of my wife, and were it your own case, what would you have done less?”“I am sorry for any dislike between you and your wife,” says he; “but what is that to me? Can you charge me with any indecency to her, except my talking so and so?” (at which he repeated the words); “and as I knew you were in the next room and heard every word, and that all the doors were open, I thought no man could have taken amiss so innocent an expression.”“I could no otherwise take it amiss,” said I, “than as I thought it implied a farther familiarity, and that you cannot expect should be borne by any man of honour. However, sir,” said I, “I spoke only to my wife. I said nothing to you, but gave you my hat as I passed you.”“Yes,” said he, “and a look as full of rage as the devil. Are there no words in such looks?”“I can say nothing to that,” said I, “for I cannot see my own countenance; but my rage, as you call it, was at my wife, not at you.”“But hark you, sir,” said he, growing warm as I grew calm, “your anger at your wife was for her discourse with me, and I think that concerns me too, and I ought to resent it.”“I think not, sir,” said I; “nor, had I found you in bed with my wife, would I have quarrelled with you; for if my wife will let you lie with her, it is she is the offender. What have I to do with you? You could not lie with her if she was not willing; and if she is willing to be a whore, I ought to punish her; but I should have no quarrel with you. I will lie with your wife if I can, and then I am even with you.”I spoke this all in good humour and in order to pacify him, but it would not do; but he would have me give him satisfaction, as he called it. I told him I was a stranger in the country, and perhaps should find little mercy in their course of justice; that it was not my business to fight any man in his vindicating his keeping company with my wife, for that the injury was mine, in having a bad woman to deal with; that there was no reason in the thing, that after any man should have found the way into my bed, I, who am injured, should go and stake my life upon an equal hazard against the man who has abused me.Nothing would prevail with this person to be quiet for all this; but I had affronted him, and no satisfaction could be made him but that at the point of the sword; so we agreed to go away together to Lisle, in Flanders. I was now soldier enough not to be afraid to look a man in the face, and as the rage at my wife inspired me with courage, so he let fall a word that fired and provoked me beyond all patience; for, speaking of the distrust I had of my wife, he said, unless I had good information I ought not to suspect my wife. I told him, if I had good information, I should be past suspicion. He replied, if he was the happy man, that had so much of her favour, he would take care then to put me past the suspicion. I gave him as rough an answer as he could desire, and he returned in French,“Nous verrons à Lisle;” that is to say, “We will talk further of it at Lisle.”I told him I did not see the benefit either to him or me of going so far as Lisle to decide this quarrel, since now I perceived he was the man I wanted; that we might decide this quarrelau champ, upon the spot, and whoever had the fortune to fall the other might make his escape to Lisle as well afterwards as before.Thus we walked on talking very ill-naturedly on both sides, and yet very mannerly, till we came clear of the suburbs of Paris, on the way to Charenton; when, seeing the way clear, I told him under those trees was a very fit place for us, pointing to a row of trees adjoining to Monsieur ——’s garden-wall. So we went thither, and fell to work immediately. After some fencing he made a home-thrust at me, and run me into my arm, a long slanting wound, but at the same time received my point into his body, and soon after fell. He spoke some words before he dropped; first he told me I had killed him; then he said he had indeed wronged me, and as he knew it, he ought not to have fought me. He desired I would make my escape immediately, which I did into the city, but no farther, nobody, as I thought, having seen us together. In the afternoon, about six hours after the action, messengers brought news, one on the heels of another, that the marquis was mortally wounded, and carried into a house at Charenton. That account, saying he was not dead, surprised me a little, not doubting but that, concluding I had made my escape, he would own who it was. However, I discovered nothing of my concern, but, going up into my chamber, I took out of a cabinet there what money I had, which indeed was so much as I thought would be sufficient for my expenses. But having an accepted bill for two thousand livres, I walked sedately to a merchant who knew me, and got fifty pistoles of him upon my bill, letting him know my business called me to England, and I would take the rest of him when he had received it.Having furnished myself thus, I provided me a horse for my servant, for I had one very good one of my own, and once more ventured home to my lodging, where I heard again that the marquis was not dead. My wife all this while covered her concern for the marquis so well that she gave me no room to make any remark upon her; but she saw evidently the marks of rage and deep resentment in my behaviour after some little stay, and perceiving me making preparation for a journey, she said to me, “Are you going out of town?” “Yes, madam,” says I, “that you may have room to mourn for your friend the marquis;” at which she started, and showed she was indeed in a most terrible fright, and making a thousand crosses about herself, with a great many callings upon the Blessed Virgin and her country saints, she burst out at last, “Is it possible? Are you the man that has killed the marquis? Then you are undone, and I too.”“You may, madam, be a loser by the marquis being killed; but I’ll take care to be as little a loser by you as I can. ’Tis enough; the marquis has honestly confessed your guilt, and I have done with you.” She would have thrown herself into my arms, protesting her innocence, and told me she would fly with me, and would convince me of her fidelity by such testimonies as I could not but be satisfied with, but I thrust her violently from me. “Allez, infame!” said I. “Go, infamous creature, and take from me the necessity I should be under, if I stayed, of sending you to keep company with your dear friend the marquis.” I thrust her away with such force that she fell backward upon the floor, and cried out most terribly, and indeed she had reason, for she was very much hurt.It grieved me indeed to have thrust her away with such force, but you must consider me now in the circumstances of a man enraged, and, as it were, out of himself, furious and mad. However, I took her up from the floor and laid her on the bed, and calling up her maid, bid her go and take care of her mistress; and, going soon after out of doors, I took horse and made the best of my way, not towards Calais or Dunkirk, or towards Flanders, whither it might be suggested I was fled, and whither they did pursue me the same evening, but I took the direct road for Lorraine, and riding all night and very hard, I passed the Maine the next day at night, at Chalons, and came safe into the Duke of Lorraine’s dominions the third day, where I rested one day only to consider what course to take; for it was still a most difficult thing to pass any way, but that I should either be in the king of France’s dominions or be taken by the French allies as a subject of France. But getting good advice from a priest at Bar le Duc, who, though I did not tell him the particulars of my case, yet guessed how it was, it being, as he said, very usual for gentlemen in my circumstances to fly that way;—upon this supposition, this kindpadregot me a church pass; that is to say, he made me a purveyor for the abbey of ——, and, as such, got me a passport to go to Deux Ponts, which belonged to the king of Sweden. Having such authority there, and the priest’s recommendation to an ecclesiastic in the place, I got passports from thence in the king of Sweden’s name to Cologne, and then I was thoroughly safe. So, making my way to the Netherlands without any difficulty, I came to the Hague, and from thence, though very privately and by several names, I came to England. And thus I got clear of my Italian wife—whore I should have called her; for, after I had made her so myself, how should I expect any other of her?Being arrived at London, I wrote to my friend at Paris, but dated my letters from the Hague, where I ordered him to direct his answers. The chief business of my writing was to know if my bill was paid him, to inquire if any pursuit was made after me, and what other news he had about me or my wife, and particularly how it had fared with the marquis.I received an answer in a few days, importing that he had received the money on my bill, which he was ready to pay as I should direct; that the marquis was not dead; “but,” said he, “you have killed him another way, for he has lost his commission in the Guards, which was worth to him twenty thousand livres, and he is yet a close prisoner in the Bastile;” that pursuit was ordered after me upon suspicion; that they had followed me to Amiens, on the road to Dunkirk, and to Chastean de Cambresis, on the way to Flanders, but missing me that way, had given it over; that the marquis had been too well instructed to own that he had fought with me, but said that he was assaulted on the road, and unless I could be taken, he would take his trial and come off for want of proof; that my flying was a circumstance indeed that moved strongly against him, because it was known that we had had some words that day, and were seen to walk together, but that, nothing being proved on either side, he would come off with the loss of his commission, which, however, being very rich, he could bear well enough.As to my wife, he wrote me word she was inconsolable, and had cried herself to death almost; but he added (very ill-natured indeed), whether it was for me or for the marquis, that he could not determine. He likewise told me she was in very bad circumstances and very low, so that, if I did not take some care of her, she would come to be in very great distress.The latter part of this story moved me indeed, for I thought, however it was, I ought not to let her starve; and, besides, poverty was a temptation which a woman could not easily withstand, and I ought not to be the instrument to drive her to a horrid necessity of crime, if I could prevent it.Upon this I wrote to him again to go to her, and talk with her, and learn as much as he could of her particular circumstances; and that, if he found she was really in want, and, particularly, that she did not live a scandalous life, he should give her twenty pistoles, and tell her, if she would engage to live retired and honestly, she should have so much annually, which was enough to subsist her.She took the first twenty pistoles, but bade him tell me that I had wronged her and unjustly charged her, and I ought to do her justice; and I had ruined her by exposing her in such a manner as I had, having no proof of my charge or ground for any suspicion; that, as to twenty pistoles a year, it was a mean allowance to a wife that had travelled over the world, as she had done with me, and the like; and so expostulated with him to obtain forty pistoles a year of me, which I consented to. But she never gave me the trouble of paying above one year; for after that the marquis was so fond of her again that he took her away to himself, and, as my friend wrote me word, had settled four hundred crowns a year on her, and I never heard any more of her.I was now in London, but was obliged to be very retired and change my name, letting nobody in the nation know who I was, except my merchant by whom I corresponded with my people in Virginia; and particularly with my tutor, who was now become the head manager of my affairs, and was in very good circumstances himself also by my means. But he deserved all I did or could do for him, for he was a most faithful friend as well as servant, as ever man had, in that country at least.I was not the easiest man alive, in the retired, solitary manner I now lived in; and I experienced the truth of the text, that “it is not good for man to be alone,” for I was extremely melancholy and heavy, and indeed knew not what to do with myself, particularly because I was under some restraint, that I was too afraid to go abroad. At last I resolved to go quite away, and go to Virginia again, and there live retired as I could.But when I came to consider that part more narrowly, I could not prevail with myself to live a private life. I had got a wandering kind of taste, and knowledge of things begat a desire of increasing it, and an exceeding delight I had in it, though I had nothing to do in the armies or in war, and did not design ever to meddle with it again. Yet I could not live in the world and not inquire what was doing in it; nor could I think of living in Virginia, where I was to hear my news twice a year, and read the public accounts of what was just then upon the stocks, as the history of things past.This was my notion: I was now in my native country, where my circumstances were easy, and though I had ill-luck abroad, for I brought little money home with me, yet, by a little good management, I might soon have money by me. I had nobody to keep but myself, and my plantations in Virginia generally returned me from £400 to £600 a year, one year above £700, and to go thither, I concluded, was to be buried alive; so I put off all thoughts of it, and resolved to settle somewhere in England where I might know everybody and nobody know me. I was not long in concluding where to pitch, for as I spoke the French tongue perfectly well, having been so many years among them, it was easy for me to pass for a Frenchman. So I went to Canterbury, called myself an Englishman among the French, and a Frenchman among the English; and on that score was the more perfectly concealed, going by the name of Monsieur Charnot with the French, and was called Mr. Charnock among the English.Here indeed I lived perfectly incog. I made no particular acquaintance so as to be intimate, and yet I knew everybody, and everybody knew me. I discoursed in common, talked French with the Walloons, and English with the English; and lived retired and sober, and was well enough received by all sorts; but as I meddled with nobody’s business, so nobody meddled with mine; I thought I lived pretty well.But I was not fully satisfied. A settled family life was the thing I loved; had made two pushes at it, as you have heard, but with ill-success; yet the miscarriage of what was past did not discourage me at all, but I resolved to marry. I looked out for a woman as suitable as I could, but always found some thing or other to shock my fancy, except once a gentleman’s daughter of good fashion; but I met with so many repulses of one kind or another that I was forced to give it over; and indeed, though I might be said to be a lover in this suit, and had managed myself so well with the young lady that I had no difficulty left but what would soon have been adjusted, yet her father was so difficult, made so many objections, was to-day not pleased one way, to-morrow another, that he would stand by nothing that he himself had proposed, nor could he be ever brought to be of the same mind two days together; so that we at last put an end to the pretensions, for she would not marry without her father’s consent, and I would not steal her, and so that affair ended.I cannot say but I was a little vexed at the disappointment of this, so I left the city of Canterbury and went to London in the stage-coach. Here I had an odd scene presented as ever happened of its kind.There was in the stage-coach a young woman and her maid. She was sitting in a very melancholy posture, for she was in the coach before me, and sighed most dreadfully all the way, and whenever her maid spoke to her she burst out into tears. I was not long in the coach with her but, seeing she made such a dismal figure, I offered to comfort her a little, and inquired into the occasion of her affliction. But she would not speak a word; but her maid, with a force of crying too, said her master was dead, at which word the lady burst out again into a passion of crying, and between mistress and maid this was all I could get for the morning part of that day. When we came to dine, I offered the lady, that seeing, I supposed, she would not dine with the company, if she would please to dine with me, I would dine in a separate room; for the rest of the company were foreigners. Her maid thanked me in her mistresses name, but her mistress could eat nothing, and desired to be private.Here, however, I had some discourse with the maid, from whom I learned that the lady was wife to a captain of a ship, who was outward bound to somewhere in the Straits—I think it was to Zante and Venice; that, being gone no farther than the Downs, he was taken sick, and after about ten days’ illness had died at Deal; that his wife, hearing of his sickness, had gone to Deal to see him, and had come but just time enough to see him die; had stayed there to bury him, and was now coming to London in a sad, disconsolate condition indeed.I heartily pitied the young gentlewoman indeed, and said some things to her in the coach to let her know I did so, which she gave no answer to, but in civility now and then made a bow, but never gave me the least opportunity to see her face, or so much as to know whether she had a face or no, much less to guess what form of a face it was. It was winter time, and the coach put up at Rochester, not going through in a day, as was usual in summer; and a little before we came to Rochester I told the lady I understood she had ate nothing to-day, that such a course would but make her sick, and, doing her harm, could do her deceased husband no good; and therefore I entreated her that, as I was a stranger, and only offered a civility to her in order to abate her severely afflicting herself, she would yield so far to matters of ceremony as let us sup together as passengers; for, as to the strangers, they did not seem to understand the custom or to desire it.She bowed, but gave no answer; only, after pressing her by arguments, which she could not deny was very civil and kind, she returned, she gave me thanks, but she could not eat. “Well, madam,” said I, “do but sit down; though you think you cannot eat, perhaps you may eat a bit. Indeed you must eat, or you will destroy yourself at this rate of living, and upon the road too; in a word, you will be sick indeed.” I argued with her. The maid put in, and said, “Do, madam; pray try to divert yourself a little.” I pressed her again, and she bowed to me very respectfully, but still said, “No,” and she could not eat. The maid continued to importune her, and said, “Dear madam, do. The gentleman is a civil gentleman; pray, madam, do;” and then, turning to me, said, “My mistress will, sir, I hope,” and seemed pleased, and indeed was so.However, I went on to persuade her; and, taking no notice of what her maid said, that I was a civil gentleman, I told her, “I am a stranger to you, madam; but if I thought you were shy of me on any account, as to civility, I will send my supper up to you in your own chamber, and stay below myself.” She bowed then to me twice, and looked up, which was the first time, and said she had no suspicion of that kind; that my offer was so civil that she was as much ashamed to refuse it as she should be ashamed to accept it, if she was where she was known; that she thought I was not quite a stranger to her, for she had seen me before; that she would accept my offer so far as to sit at table, because I desired it; but she could not promise me to eat, and that she hoped I would take the other as a constraint upon her, in return to so much kindness.She startled me when she said she had seen me before; for I had not the least knowledge of her, nor did I remember so much as to have heard of her name; for I had asked her name of her maid; and indeed it made me almost repent my compliment, for it was many ways essential to me not to be known. However, I could not go back; and, besides, if I was known, it was essentially necessary to me to know who it was that knew me, and by what circumstances; so I went on with my compliment.We came to the inn but just before it was dark. I offered to hand my widow out of the coach, and she could not decline it; but though her hoods were not then much over her face, yet, being dark, I could see little of her then. I waited on her then into the stairfoot, and led her up the inn-stairs to a dining-room which the master of the house offered to show us, as if for the whole company; but she declined going in there, and said she desired rather to go directly to her chamber, and turning to her maid, bade her speak to the innkeeper to show her to her lodging-room. So I waited on her to the door, and took my leave, telling her I would expect her at supper.In order to treat her moderately well, and not extravagantly, for I had no thoughts of anything farther than civility, which was the effect of mere compassion for the unhappiness of the most truly disconsolate woman that I ever met with; I say, in order to treat her handsomely, but not extravagantly, I provided what the house afforded, which was a couple of partridges and a very good dish of stewed oysters. They brought us up afterwards a neat’s tongue and a ham that was almost cut quite down, but we ate none of it; for the other was fully enough for us both, and the maid made her supper off the oysters we had left, which were enough.I mention this because it should appear I did not treat her as a person I was making any court to, for I had nothing of that in my thoughts; but merely in pity to the poor woman, who I saw in a circumstance that was indeed very unhappy.When I gave her maid notice that supper was ready, she fetched her mistress, coming in before her with a candle in her hand, and then it was that I saw her face, and being in her dishabille, she had no hood over her eyes or black upon her head, when I was truly surprised to see one of the most beautiful faces upon earth. I saluted her, and led her to the fireside, the table, though spread, being too far from the fire, the weather being cold.She was now something sociable, though very grave, and sighed often on account of her circumstances. But she so handsomely governed her grief, yet so artfully made it mingle itself with all her discourse, that it added exceedingly to her behaviour, which was every way most exquisitely genteel. I had a great deal of discourse with her, and upon many subjects, and by degrees took her name, that is to say, from herself, as I had done before from her maid; also the place where she lived, viz., near Ratcliff, or rather Stepney, where I asked her leave to pay her a visit when she thought fit to admit company, which she seemed to intimate would not be a great while.It is a subject too surfeiting to entertain people with the beauty of a person they will never see. Let it suffice to tell them she was the most beautiful creature of her sex that I ever saw before or since; and it cannot be wondered if I was charmed with her the very first moment I saw her face. Her behaviour was likewise a beauty in itself, and was so extraordinary that I cannot say I can describe it.The next day she was much more free than she was the first night, and I had so much conversation as to enter into particulars of things on both sides; also she gave me leave to come and see her house, which, however, I did not do under a fortnight or thereabouts, because I did not know how far she would dispense with the ceremony which it was necessary to keep up at the beginning of the mourning.However, I came as a man that had business with her, relating to the ship her husband was dead out of, and the first time I came was admitted; and, in short, the first time I came I made love to her. She received that proposal with disdain. I cannot indeed say she treated me with any disrespect, but she said she abhorred the offer, and would hear no more of it. How I came to make such a proposal to her I scarce knew then, though it was very much my intention from the first.In the meantime I inquired into her circumstances and her character, and heard nothing but what was very agreeable of them both; and, above all, I found she had the report of the best-humoured lady and the best-bred of all that part of the town; and now I thought I had found what I had so often wished for to make me happy and had twice miscarried in, and resolved not to miss her, if it was possible to obtain her.It came indeed a little into my thoughts that I was a married man, and had a second wife alive, who, though she was false to me and a whore, yet I was not legally divorced from her, and that she was my wife for all that. But I soon got over that part; for, first, as she was a whore, and the marquis had confessed it to me, I was divorced in law, and I had a power to put her away. But having had the misfortune of fighting a duel, and being obliged to quit the country, I could not claim the legal process which was my right, and therefore might conclude myself as much divorced as if it had been actually done, and so that scruple vanished.I suffered now two months to run without pressing my widow any more, only I kept a strict watch to find if any one else pretended to her. At the end of two months I visited her again, when I found she received me with more freedom, and we had no more sighs and sobs about the last husband; and though she would not let me press my former proposal so far as I thought I might have done, yet I found I had leave to come again, and it was the article of decency which she stood upon as much as anything; that I was not disagreeable to her, and that my using her so handsomely upon the road had given me a great advantage in her favour.I went on gradually with her, and gave her leave to stand off for two months more. But then I told her the matter of decency, which was but a ceremony, was not to stand in competition with the matter of affection; and, in short, I could not bear any longer delay, but that, if she thought fit, we might marry privately; and, to cut the story short, as I did my courtship, in about five months I got her in the mind, and we were privately married, and that with so very exact a concealment that her maid, that was so instrumental in it, yet had no knowledge of it for near a month more.I was now, not only in my imagination, but in reality, the most happy creature in the world, as I was so infinitely satisfied with my wife, who was indeed the best-humoured woman in the world, a most accomplished, beautiful creature indeed, perfectly well-bred, and had not one ill quality about her; and this happiness continued without the least interruption for about six years.But I, that was to be the most unhappy fellow alive in the article of matrimony, had at last a disappointment of the worst sort even here. I had three fine children by her, and in her time of lying-in with the last she got some cold, that she did not in a long time get off; and, in short, she grew very sickly. In being so continually ill and out of order, she very unhappily got a habit of drinking cordials and hot liquors. Drink, like the devil, when it gets hold of any one, though but a little, it goes on by little and little to their destruction. So in my wife, her stomach being weak and faint, she first took this cordial, then that, till, in short, she could not live without them, and from a drop to a sup, from a sup to a dram, from a dram to a glass, and so on to two, till at last she took, in short, to what we call drinking.As I likened drink to the devil, in its gradual possession of the habits and person, so it is yet more like the devil in its encroachment on us, where it gets hold of our senses. In short, my beautiful, good-humoured, modest, well-bred wife grew a beast, a slave to strong liquor, and would be drunk at her own table—nay, in her own closet by herself, till, instead of a well-made, fine shape, she was as fat as a hostess; her fine face, bloated and blotched, had not so much as the ruins of the most beautiful person alive—nothing remained but a good eye; that indeed she held to the last. In short, she lost her beauty, her shape, her manners, and at last her virtue; and, giving herself up to drinking, killed herself in about a year and a half after she first began that cursed trade, in which time she twice was exposed in the most scandalous manner with a captain of a ship, who, like a villain, took the advantage of her being in drink and not knowing what she did. But it had this unhappy effect, that instead of her being ashamed and repenting of it when she came to herself, it hardened her in the crime, and she grew as void of modesty at last as of sobriety.Oh, the power of intemperance! and how it encroaches on the best dispositions in the world; how it comes upon us gradually and insensibly; and what dismal effects it works upon our morals, changing the most virtuous, regular, well-instructed, and well-inclined tempers into worse than brutal! That was a good story, whether real or invented, of the devil tempting a young man to murder his father. No, he said; that was unnatural. “Why, then,” says the devil, “go and lie with your mother.” “No,” says he; “that is abominable.” “Well, then,” says the devil, “if you will do nothing else to oblige me, go and get drunk.” “Ay, ay,” says the fellow, “I will do that.” So he went and made himself drunk as a swine, and when he was drunk, he murdered his father and lay with his mother.Never was a woman more virtuous, modest, chaste, sober; she never so much as desired to drink any thing strong; it was with the greatest entreaty that I could prevail with her to drink a glass or two of wine, and rarely, if ever, above one or two at a time; even in company she had no inclination to it. Not an immodest word ever came out of her mouth, nor would she suffer it in any one else in her hearing without resentment and abhorrence. But upon that weakness and illness after her last lying-in, as above, the nurse pressed her, whenever she found herself faint and a sinking of her spirits, to take this cordial and that dram, to keep up her spirits, till it became necessary even to keep her alive, and gradually increased to a habit, so that it was no longer her physic but her food. Her appetite sunk and went quite away, and she ate little or nothing, but came at last to such a dreadful height that, as I have said, she would be drunk in her own dressing-room by eleven o’clock in the morning, and, in short, at last was never sober.In this life of hellish excess, as I have said, she lost all that was before so valuable in her, and a villain, if it be proper to call a man who was really a gentleman by such a name, who was an intimate acquaintance, coming to pretend a visit to her, made her and her maid so drunk together that he lay with them both; with the mistress, the maid being in the room, and with the maid, the mistress being in the room; after which he, it seems, took the like liberty with them both as often as he thought fit, till the wench, being with child, discovered it for herself, and for her mistress too. Let any one judge what was my case now. I, that for six years thought myself the happiest man alive, was now the most miserable, distracted creature. As to my wife, I loved her so well, and was so sensible of the disaster of her drinking being the occasion of it all, that I could not resent it to such a degree as I had done in her predecessor; but I pitied her heartily. However, I put away all her servants, and almost locked her up; that is to say, I set new people over her, who would not suffer any one to come near her without my knowledge.But what to do with the villain that had thus abused both her and me, that was the question that remained. To fight him upon equal terms, I thought, was a little hard; that after a man had treated me as he had done, he deserved no fair play for his life. So I resolved to wait for him in Stepney fields, and which way he often came home pretty late, and pistol him in the dark, and, if possible, to let him know what I killed him for before I did it. But when I came to consider of this, it shocked my temper too as well as principle, and I could not be a murderer, whatever else I could be, or whatever I was provoked to be.However, I resolved, on the other hand, that I would severely correct him for what he had done, and it was not long before I had an opportunity; for, hearing one morning that he was walking across the fields from Stepney to Shadwell, which way I knew he often went, I waited for his coming home again, and fairly met him.I had not many words with him, but told him I had long looked for him; that he knew the villainy he had been guilty of in my family, and he could not believe, since he knew also that I was fully informed of it, but that I must be a great coward, as well as a cuckold, or that I would resent it, and that it was now a very proper time to call him to an account for it; and therefore bade him, if he durst show his face to what he had done, and defend the name of a captain of a man-of-war, as they said he had been, to draw.He seemed surprised at the thing, and began to parley, and would lessen the crime of it; but I told him it was not a time to talk that way, since he could not deny the fact; and to lessen the crime was to lay it the more upon the woman, who, I was sure, if he had not first debauched with wine, he could never have brought to the rest; and, seeing he refused to draw, I knocked him down with my cane at one blow, and I would not strike him again while he lay on the ground, but waited to see him recover a little; for I saw plainly he was not killed. In a few minutes he came to himself again, and then I took him fast by one wrist, and caned him as severely as I was able, and as long as I could hold it for want of breath, but forbore his head, because I was resolved he should feel it. In this condition at last he begged for mercy, but I was deaf to all pity a great while, till he roared out like a boy soundly whipped. Then I took his sword from him and broke it before his face, and left him on the ground, giving him two or three kicks on the backside, and bade him go and take the law of me if he thought fit.I had now as much satisfaction as indeed could be taken of a coward, and had no more to say to him; but as I knew it would make a great noise about the town, I immediately removed my family, and, that I might be perfectly concealed, went into the north of England, and lived in a little town called ——, not far from Lancaster, where I lived retired, and was no more heard of for about two years. My wife, though more confined than she used to be, and so kept up from the lewd part which, I believe, in the intervals of her intemperance, she was truly ashamed of and abhorred, yet retained the drinking part, which becoming, as I have said, necessary for her subsistence, she soon ruined her health, and in about a year and a half after my removal into the north she died.Thus I was once more a free man, and, as one would think, should by this time have been fully satisfied that matrimony was not appointed to be a state of felicity to me.I should have mentioned that the villain of a captain who I had drubbed, as above, pretended to make a great stir about my assaulting him on the highway, and that I had fallen upon him with three ruffians, with an intent to murder him; and this began to obtain belief among the people in the neighbourhood. I sent him word of so much of it as I had heard, and told him I hoped it did not come from his own mouth; but if it did, I expected he would publicly disown it, he himself declaring he knew it to be false, or else I should be forced to act the same thing over again, till I had disciplined him into better manners; and that he might be assured that if he continued to pretend that I had anybody with me when I caned him, I would publish the whole story in print, and, besides that, would cane him again wherever I met him, and as often as I met him, till he thought fit to defend himself with his sword like a gentleman.He gave me no answer to this letter; and the satisfaction I had for that was, that I gave twenty or thirty copies of it about among the neighbours, which made it as public as if I had printed it (that is, as to his acquaintance and mine), and made him so hissed at and hated that he was obliged to remove into some other part of the town—whither I did not inquire.My wife being now dead, I knew not what course to take in the world, and I grew so disconsolate and discouraged that I was next door to being distempered, and sometimes, indeed, I thought myself a little touched in my head. But it proved nothing but vapours and the vexation of this affair, and in about a year’s time, or thereabouts, it wore off again.I had rambled up and down in a most discontented, unsettled posture after this, I say, about a year, and then I considered I had three innocent children, and I could take no care of them, and that I must either go away and leave them to the wide world or settle here and get somebody to look after them, and that better a mother-in-law than no mother; for to live such a wandering life it would not do; so I resolved I would marry as anything offered, though it was mean, and the meaner the better. I concluded my next wife should be only taken as an upper servant; that is to say, a nurse to my children and housekeeper to myself; “and let her be whore or honest woman,” said I, “as she likes best; I am resolved I will not much concern myself about that;” for I was now one desperate, that valued not how things went.In this careless, and indeed rash, foolish humour, I talked to myself thus: “If I marry an honest woman, my children will be taken care of; if she be a slut and abuses me, as I see everybody does, I will kidnap her and send her to Virginia, to my plantations there, and there she shall work hard enough and fare hard enough to keep her chaste, I’ll warrant her.”I knew well enough at first that these were mad, hare-brained notions, and I thought no more of being serious in them than I thought of being a man in the moon; but I know not how it happened to me, I reasoned and talked to myself in this wild manner so long that I brought myself to be seriously desperate; that is, to resolve upon another marriage, with all the suppositions of unhappiness that could be imagined to fall out.And yet even this rash resolution of my senses did not come presently to action; for I was half a year after this before I fixed upon anything. At last, as he that seeks mischief shall certainly find it, so it was with me. There happened to be a young, or rather a middle-aged, woman in the next town, which was but a half-mile off, who usually was at my house and among my children every day when the weather was tolerable; and though she came but merely as a neighbour, and to see us, yet she was always helpful in directing and ordering things for them, and mighty handy about them, as well before my wife died as after.Her father was one that I employed often to go to Liverpool, and sometimes to Whitehaven, and do business for me; for having, as it were, settled myself in the northern parts of England, I had ordered part of my effects to be shipped, as occasion of shipping offered, to either of those two towns, to which, the war continuing very sharp, it was safer coming, as to privateers, than about through the Channel to London.I took a mighty fancy at last that this girl would answer my end, particularly that I saw she was mighty useful among the children; so, on the other hand, the children loved her very well, and I resolved to love her too, flattering myself mightily, that as I had married two gentlewomen and one citizen, and they proved all three whores, I should now find what I wanted in an innocent country wench.I took up a world of time in considering of this matter; indeed scarce any of my matches were done without very mature consideration. The second was the worst in that article, but in this I thought of it, I believe, four months most seriously before I resolved, and that very prudence spoiled the whole thing. However, at last being resolved, I took Mrs. Margaret one day as she passed by my parlour-door, called her in, and told her I wanted to speak with her. She came readily in, but blushed mightily when I bade her sit down in a chair just by me.I used no great ceremony with her, but told her that I had observed she had been mighty kind to my children, and was very tender to them, and that they all loved her, and that, if she and I could agree about it, I intended to make her their mother, if she was not engaged to somebody else. The girl sat still and said never a word till I said those words, “if she was not engaged to somebody else;” when she seemed struck. However, I took no notice of it, other than this, “Look ye, Moggy,” said I (so they call them in the country), “if you have promised yourself, you must tell me.” For we all knew that a young fellow, a good clergyman’s wicked son, had hung about her a great while, two or three years, and made love to her, but could never get the girl in the mind, it seems, to have him.She knew I was not ignorant of it, and therefore, after her first surprise was over, she told me Mr. —— had, as I knew, often come after her, but she had never promised him anything, and had for several years refused him; her father always telling her that he was a wicked fellow, and that he would be her ruin if she had him.“Well, Moggy, then,” says I, “what dost say to me? Art thou free to make me a wife?” She blushed and looked down upon the ground, and would not speak a good while; but when I pressed her to tell me, she looked up, and said she supposed I was but jesting with her. Well, I got over that, and told her I was in very good earnest with her, and I took her for a sober, honest, modest girl, and, as I said, one that my children loved mighty well, and I was in earnest with her; if she would give me her consent, I would give her my word that I would have her, and we would be married to-morrow morning. She looked up again at that, and smiled a little, and said no, that was too soon too to say yes. She hoped I would give her some time to consider of it, and to talk with her father about it.I told her she needed not much time to consider about it; but, however, I would give her till to-morrow morning, which was a great while. By this time I had kissed Moggy two or three times, and she began to be freer with me; and when I pressed her to marry me the next morning, she laughed, and told me it was not lucky to be married in her old clothes.I stopped her mouth presently with that, and told her she should not be married in her old clothes, for I would give her some new. “Ay, it may be afterwards,” says Moggy, and laughed again. “No, just now,” says I. “Come along with me, Moggy;” so I carried her upstairs into my wife’s room that was, and showed her a new morning-gown of my wife’s, that she had never worn above two or three times, and several other fine things. “Look you there, Moggy,” says I, “there is a wedding-gown for you; give me your hand now that you will have me to-morrow morning. And as to your father, you know he has gone to Liverpool on my business, but I will answer for it he shall not be angry when he comes home to call his master son-in-law; and I ask him no portion. Therefore give me thy hand for it, Moggy,” says I very merrily to her, and kissed her again; and the girl gave me her hand, and very pleasantly too, and I was mightily pleased with it, I assure you.There lived about three doors from us an ancient gentleman who passed for a doctor of physic, but who was really a Romish priest in orders, as there are many in that part of the country; and in the evening I sent to speak with him. He knew that I understood his profession, and that I had lived in popish countries, and, in a word, believed me a Roman too, for I was such abroad. When he came to me I told him the occasion for which I sent for him, and that it was to be to-morrow morning. He readily told me, if I would come and see him in the evening, and bring Moggy with me, he would marry us in his own study, and that it was rather more private to do it in the evening than in the morning. So I called Moggy again to me, and told her, since she and I had agreed the matter for to-morrow, it was as well to be done overnight, and told her what the doctor had said.Moggy blushed again, and said she must go home first, that she could not be ready before to-morrow. “Look ye, Moggy,” says I, “you are my wife now, and you shall never go away from me a maid. I know what you mean; you would go home to shift you. Come, Moggy,” says I, “come along with me again upstairs.” So I carried her to a chest of linen, where were several new shifts of my last wife’s, which she had never worn at all, and some that had been worn.“There is a clean smock for you, Moggy,” says I, “and to-morrow you shall have all the rest.” When I had done this, “Now, Moggy,” says I, “go and dress you;” so I locked her in, and went downstairs. “Knock,” says I, “when you are dressed.”After some time Moggy did not knock, but down she came into my room, completely dressed, for there were several other things that I bade her take, and the clothes fitted her as if they had been made for her. It seems she slipped the lock back.“Well, Moggy,” says I, “now you see you shan’t be married in your old clothes;” so I took her in my arms and kissed her; and well pleased I was as ever I was in my life, or with anything I ever did in my life. As soon as it was dark Moggy slipped away beforehand, as the doctor and I had agreed, to the old gentleman’s housekeeper, and I came in about half-an-hour after; and there we were married in the doctor’s study—that is to say, in his oratory or chapel, a little room within his study—and we stayed and supped with him afterwards.Then, after a short stay more, I went home first, because I would send the children all to bed, and the other servants out of the way; and Moggy came some time after, and so we lay together that night. The next morning I let all the family know that Moggy was my wife, and my three children were rejoiced at it to the last degree. And now I was a married man a fourth time; and, in short, I was really more happy in this plain country girl than with any of all the wives I had had. She was not young, being about thirty-three, but she brought me a son the first year. She was very pretty, well-shaped, and of a merry, cheerful disposition, but not a beauty. She was an admirable family manager, loved my former children, and used them not at all the worse for having some of her own. In a word, she made me an excellent wife, but lived with me but four years, and died of a hurt she got of a fall while she was with child, and in her I had a very great loss indeed.
This made the prince halt, not knowing what the case was or how strong we were, and, to get better intelligence, sent two hundred horse to surround or skirt the wood and beat up our quarter, and in the interim the Count de Tesse appeared in his rear. We found the strait he was in by the noise of our own troops at a distance; so we resolved to engage the two hundred horse immediately. Accordingly our little troop of horse drew up in the entrance of the lane and offered to skirmish, and our foot, lying behind the hedge which went round the wood, stood ready to act as occasion should offer. The horse, being attacked, gave way, and retired into the lane; but the Germans were too old for us there. They contented themselves to push us to the entrance, but would not be drawn into a narrow pass without knowing whether the hedges were lined or no.
But the prince, finding the French in his rear, and not being strong enough to engage again, resolved to force his way through, and commanded his dragoons to alight and enter the wood, to clear the hedges on either side the lane, that he might pass with his cavalry. This they did so vigorously, and were so much too strong for us, that though we made good our ground a long time, yet our men were almost half of them cut in pieces. However, we gave time to the French cavalry to come up, and to fall on the prince’s troops and cut them off, and take a great many prisoners, and then we retreated in our turn, opening a gap for our own horse to break in. Three hundred of the dragoons were killed, and two hundred of them taken prisoners.
In the first heat of this action, a German officer of dragoons, well followed, had knocked down three men that stood next me; and, offering me quarter, I was obliged to accept it, and gave him my sword; for our men were upon the point of quitting their post and shifting every one as they could. But the scale was turned, for our cavalry breaking in, as above, the dragoons went to wreck, and the officer who had me prisoner, turning to me, said, “We are all lost.” I asked him if I could serve him. “Stand still a little,” says he; for his men fought most desperately indeed. But about two hundred French horse appearing in his rear too, he said to me in French, “I will be your prisoner,” and returning me my sword, gave me also his own. A dragoon that stood near him was just going to do the like, when he was shot dead, and the horse coming up, the field was cleared in an instant. But Prince Commercy went off with the rest of his party, and was pursued no farther.
There were sixteen or seventeen of our men released, as I was, from being taken; but they had not the luck I had, to take the officer that had them in keeping. He had been so generous to me as not to ask what money I had about me, though I had not much if he had. But I lost by his civility, for then I could not have the assurance to ask him for his money, though I understood he had near a hundred pistoles about him. But he very handsomely at night, when we came to our tents, made me a present of twenty pistoles, and in return I obtained leave for him to go to Prince Eugene’s camp upon his parole, which he did, and so got himself exchanged.
It was after this campaign that I was quartered at Cremona, when the action happened there of which I have spoken already, and where our Irish regiment did such service that they saved the town from being really surprised, and indeed beat the Germans out again, after they had been masters of three-quarters of the town six hours, and by which they gained a very great reputation.
But I hasten on to my own history, for I am not writing a journal of the wars, in which I had no long share.
The summer after this our two Irish regiments were drawn out into the field, and had many a sore brush with the Germans; for Prince Eugene, a vigilant general, gave us little rest, and gained many advantages by his continual moving up and down, harassing his own men and ours too; and whoever will do the French justice, and knew how they had behaved, must acknowledge they never declined the Germans, but fought them upon all occasions with the utmost resolution and courage; and though it cost the blood of an infinite number of fine gentlemen, as well as private soldiers, yet the Duke de Vendôme, who now commanded, though King Philip was himself in the army this campaign, made the Prince of Savoy a full return in his own kind, and drove him from post to post, till he was just at the point of quitting the whole country of Italy. All that gallant army Prince Eugene brought with him into Italy, which was the best without doubt, for the goodness of the troops, that ever were there, laid their bones in that country, and many thousands more after them, till, the affairs of France declining in other places, they were forced in their turn to give way to their fate, as may be seen in the histories of those times, as above. But it is none of my business.
The part that I bore in these affairs was but short and sharp. We took the field about the beginning of July 1702, and the Duke de Vendôme ordered the whole army to draw the sooner together, in order to relieve the city of Mantua, which was blocked up by the imperialists.
Prince Eugene was a politic, and indeed a fortunate, prince, and had the year before pushed our army upon many occasions. But his good fortune began to fail him a little this year, for our army was not only more numerous than his, but the duke was in the field before him; and as the prince had held Mantua closely blocked up all the winter, the duke resolved to relieve the town, cost what it would. As I said, the duke was first in the field; the prince was in no condition to prevent his raising the blockade by force; so he drew off his troops, and leaving several strong bodies of troops to protect Bersello, which the Duke de Vendôme threatened, and Borgo Fort, where his magazine lay, he drew all the rest of his forces together, to make head against us. By this time the king of Spain was come into the army, and the Duke de Vendôme lay with about thirty-five thousand men near Luzara, which he had resolved to attack, to bring Prince Eugene to a battle. The Prince of Vaudemont lay intrenched with twenty thousand more at Rivalto, behind Mantua, to cover the frontiers of Milan, and there was near twelve thousand in Mantua itself; and Monsieur Pracontal lay with ten thousand men just under the cannon of one of the forts which guard the causeway which leads into the city of Mantua; so that, had all these joined, as they would have done in a few days more, the prince must have been put to his shifts, and would have had enough to do to have maintained himself in Italy; for he was master of no one place in the country that could have held out a formal siege of fifteen days’ open trenches, and he knew all this very well; and therefore it seems, while the Duke of Vendôme resolved, if possible, to bring him to a battle, and to that end made dispositions to attack Luzara, we were surprised to find, the 15th of June 1702, the whole imperial army appeared inbattalia, and in full march, to attack us.
As it happened, our army was all marching in columns towards them, as we had done for two days before; and I should have told you that, three days before, the duke having noticed that General Visconti, with three imperial regiments of horse and one of dragoons, was posted at San-Victoria, on the Tessona, he resolved to attack them; and this design was carried so secretly, that while Monsieur Visconti, though our army was three leagues another way, was passing towards the Modenese, he found himself unexpectedly attacked by six thousand horse and dragoons of the French army. He defended himself very bravely for near an hour; when, being overpowered, and finding he should be forced into disorder, he sounded a retreat. But the squadrons had not faced about to make their retreat scarce a quarter of an hour, when they found themselves surrounded with a great body of infantry, who had entirely cut off their retreat, except over the bridge of Tessona, which being thronged with their baggage, they could neither get backward or forward; so they thrust and tumbled over one another in such a manner that they could preserve no kind of order; but abundance fell into the river and were drowned, many were killed, and more taken prisoners; so that, in a word, the whole three regiments of horse and one of dragoons were entirely defeated.
This was a great blow to the prince, because they were some of the choicest troops of his whole army. We took about four hundred prisoners, and all their baggage, which was a very considerable booty, and about eight hundred horses; and no doubt these troops were very much wanted in the battle that ensued on the 15th, as I have said. Our army being in full march, as above, to attack Luzara, a party of Germans appeared, being about six hundred horse, and in less than an hour more their whole army, in order of battle.
Our army formed immediately, and the duke posted the regiments as they came up so much to their advantage that Prince Eugene was obliged to alter his dispositions, and had this particular inconvenience upon his hands, viz., to attack an army superior to his own, in all their most advantageous posts; whereas, had he thought fit to have waited but one day, we should have met him half-way. But this was owing to the pride of the German generals, and their being so opinionated of the goodness of their troops. The royal army was posted with the left to the great river Po, on the other side of which the Prince of Vaudemont’s army lay cannonading the intrenchments which the imperialists had made at Borgo Fort; and hearing that there was like to be a general battle, he detached twelve battalions and about a thousand horse, to reinforce the royal army; all which, to our great encouragement, had time to join the army, while Prince Eugene was making his new dispositions for the attack. And yet it was the coming of these troops which caused Prince Eugene to resolve to begin the fight, expecting to have come to an action before they could come up. But he was disappointed in the reason of fighting, and yet was obliged to fight too, which was an error in the prince that it was too late to retrieve.
It was five o’clock in the evening before he could bring up his whole line to engage; and then, after having cannonaded us to no great purpose for half-an-hour, his right, commanded by the Prince de Commercy, attacked our left wing with great fury. Our men received them so well and seconded one another so punctually that they were repulsed with a very great slaughter; and the Prince de Commercy being, unhappily for them, killed in the first onset, the regiments, for want of orders, and surprised with the fall of so great a man, were pushed into disorder, and one whole brigade was entirely broke.
But their second line, advancing under General Herbeville, restored things in the first. The battalions rallied, and they came boldly on to charge a second time, and being seconded with new reinforcements from their main body, our men had their turn, and were pushed to a canal which lay on their left flank between them and the Po, behind which they rallied; and being supported by new troops, as well horse as foot, they fought on both sides with the utmost obstinacy, and with such courage and skill that it was not possible to judge who should have had the better could they have been able to have fought it out.
On the right of the royal army was posted the flower of the French cavalry—namely, the gendarmes, the royal carbineers, and the queen’s horse-guards, with four hundred horse more—and next them the infantry, among which were our brigade. The horse advanced first to charge, and they carried all before them sword in hand, receiving the fire of two imperial regiments of cuirassiers without firing a shot, and falling in among them, bore them down by the strength of their horses, putting them into confusion, and left so clear a field for us to follow that the first line of our infantry stood drawn up upon the ground which the enemy at first possessed.
In this first attack the Marquis de Crequi, who commanded the whole right wing, was killed—a loss which fully balanced the death of the Prince de Commercy on the side of the Germans. After we had thus pushed the enemy’s cavalry, as above, their troops, being rallied by the dexterity of their generals and supported by three imperial regiments of foot, came on again to the charge with such fury that nothing could withstand them. And here two battalions of our Irish regiments were put into disorder, and abundance of our men killed; and here also I had the misfortune to receive a musket-shot, which broke my left arm; and that was not all, for I was knocked down by a giant-like German soldier, who, when he thought he had killed me, set his foot upon me, but was immediately shot dead by one of my men, and fell just upon me, which, my arm being broken, was a very great mischief to me; for the very weight of the fellow, who was almost as big as a horse, was such that I was not able to stir.
Our men were beaten back after this from the place where they stood; and so I was left in possession of the enemy, but was not their prisoner—that is to say, was not found till next morning, when a party being sent, as usual, with surgeons to look after the wounded men among the dead, found me almost smothered with the dead Germans and others that lay near me. However, to do them justice, they used me with humanity, and the surgeons set my arm very skilfully and well; and four or five days after, I had liberty to go to Parma upon parole.
Both the armies continued fighting, especially on our left, till it was so dark that it was impossible to know who they fired at, or for the generals to see what they did; so they abated firing gradually, and, as it may be truly said, the night parted them.
Both sides claimed the victory, and both concealed their losses as much as it was possible; but it is certain that never battle was fought with greater bravery and obstinacy than this was; and had there been daylight to have fought it out, doubtless there would have been many thousand more men killed on both sides.
All the Germans had to entitle them to the victory was, that they made our left retire, as I have said, to the canal, and to the high banks or mounds on the edge of the Po; but they had so much advantage in the retreat—they fired from thence among the thickest of the enemy, and could never be forced from their posts.
The best testimony the royal army had of the victory, and which was certainly the better of the two, was, that, two days after the fight, they attacked Guastalia, as it were in view of the German army, and forced the garrison to surrender, and to swear not to serve again for six months, which, they being fifteen hundred men, was a great loss to the Germans; and yet Prince Eugene did not offer to relieve it. And after that we took several other posts which the imperialists had possession of, but were obliged to quit them upon the approach of the French army, not being in a condition to fight another battle that year.
My campaign was now at an end, and though I came lame off, I came off much better than abundance of gentlemen; for in that bloody battle we had above four hundred officers killed or wounded, whereof three were general officers.
The campaign held on till December, and the Duke de Vendôme took Borgo Fort and several other places from the Germans, who, in short, lost ground every day in Italy. I was a prisoner a great while, and there being no cartel settled, Prince Eugene ordered the French prisoners to be sent into Hungary, which was a cruelty that could not be reasonably exercised on them. However, a great many, by that banishment, found means to make their escape to the Turks, by whom they were kindly received, and the French ambassador at Constantinople took care of them, and shipped them back again into Italy at the king’s charge.
But the Duke de Vendôme now took so many German prisoners that Prince Eugene was tired of sending his prisoners to Hungary, and was obliged to be at the charge of bringing some of them back again whom he had sent thither, and come to agree to a general exchange of prisoners.
I was, as I have said, allowed for a time to go to Parma upon my parole, where I continued for the recovery of my wound and broken arm forty days, and was then obliged to render myself to the commanding officer at Ferrara, where Prince Eugene coming soon after, I was, with several other prisoners of war, sent away into the Milanese, to be kept for an exchange of prisoners.
It was in the city of Trent that I continued about eight months. The man in whose house I quartered was exceedingly civil to me, and took a great deal of care of me, and I lived very easy. Here I contracted a kind of familiarity, perfectly undesigned by me, with the daughter of the burgher at whose house I had lodged, and, I know not by what fatality that was upon me, I was prevailed with afterwards to marry her. This was a piece of honesty on my side which I must acknowledge I never intended to be guilty of; but the girl was too cunning for me, for she found means to get some wine into my head more than I used to drink, and though I was not so disordered with it but that I knew very well what I did, yet in an unusual height of good humour I consented to be married. This impolitic piece of honesty put me to many inconveniences, for I knew not what to do with this clog which I had loaded myself with. I could neither stay with her or take her with me, so that I was exceedingly perplexed.
The time came soon after that I was released by the cartel, and so was obliged to go to my regiment, which then was in quarters in the Milanese, and from thence I got leave to go to Paris, upon my promise to raise some recruits in England for the Irish regiments, by the help of my correspondence there. Having thus leave to go to Paris, I took a passport from the enemy’s army to go to Trent, and making a long circuit, I went back thither, and very honestly packed up my baggage, wife and all, and brought her away through Tyrol into Bavaria, and so through Suabia and the Black Forest into Alsatia; from thence I came into Lorraine, and so to Paris.
I had now a secret design to quit the war, for I really had had enough of fighting. But it was counted so dishonourable a thing to quit while the army was in the field that I could not dispense with it; but an intervening accident made that part easy to me. The war was now renewed between France and England and Holland, just as it was before; and the French king, meditating nothing more than how to give the English a diversion, fitted out a strong squadron of men-of-war and frigates at Dunkirk, on board of which he embarked a body of troops of about six thousand five hundred men, besides volunteers; and the new king, as we called him, though more generally he was called the Chevalier de St. George, was shipped along with them, and all for Scotland.
I pretended a great deal of zeal for this service, and that if I might be permitted to sell my company in the Irish regiment I was in, and have the chevalier’s brevet for a colonel, in case of raising troops for him in Great Britain after his arrival, I would embark volunteer and serve at my own expense. The latter gave me a great advantage with the chevalier; for now I was esteemed as a man of consideration, and one that must have a considerable interest in my own country. So I obtained leave to sell my company, and having had a good round sum of money remitted me from London, by the way of Holland, I prepared a very handsome equipage, and away I went to Dunkirk to embark.
I was very well received by the chevalier; and as he had an account that I was an officer in the Irish brigade, and had served in Italy, and consequently was an old soldier, all this added to the character which I had before, and made me have a great deal of honour paid me, though at the same time I had no particular attachment to his person or to his cause. Nor indeed did I much consider the cause of one side or other. If I had, I should hardly have risked, not my life only, but effects too, which were all, as I might say, from that moment forfeited to the English government, and were too evidently in their power to confiscate at their pleasure.
However, having just received a remittance from London of £300 sterling, and sold my company in the Irish regiment for very near as much, I was not only insensibly drawn in, but was perfectly volunteer in that dull cause, and away I went with them at all hazards. It belongs very little to my history to give an account of that fruitless expedition, only to tell you that, being so closely and effectually chased by the English fleet, which was superior in force to the French, I may say that, in escaping them, I escaped being hanged.
It was the good fortune of the French that they overshot the port they aimed at, and intending for the Frith of Forth, or, as it is called, the Frith of Edinburgh, the first land they made was as far north as a place called Montrose, where it was not their business to land, and so they were obliged to come back to the frith, and were gotten to the entrance of it, and came to an anchor for the tide. But this delay or hindrance gave time to the English, under Sir George Byng, to come to the frith, and they came to an anchor, just as we did, only waiting to go up the frith with the flood.
Had we not overshot the port, as above, all our squadron had been destroyed in two days, and all we could have done had been to have gotten into the pier or haven at Leith with the smaller frigates, and have landed the troops and ammunition; but we must have set fire to the men-of-war, for the English squadron was not above twenty-four hours behind us, or thereabout.
Upon this surprise, the French admiral set sail from the north point of the frith where we lay, and crowding away to the north, got the start of the English fleet, and made their escape, with the loss of one ship only, which, being behind the rest, could not get away.
When we were satisfied the English left chasing us, which was not till the third night, when we altered our course and lost sight of them, we stood over to the coast of Norway, and keeping that shore on board all the way to the mouth of the Baltic, we came to an anchor again, and sent two scouts abroad to learn news, to see if the sea was clear; and being satisfied that the enemy did not chase us, we kept on with an easier sail, and came all back again to Dunkirk; and glad I was to set my foot on shore again; for all the while we were thus flying for our lives I was under the greatest terror imaginable, and nothing but halters and gibbets run in my head, concluding that, if I had been taken, I should certainly have been hanged.
But the care was now over. I took my leave of the chevalier, and of the army, and made haste to Paris. I came so unexpectedly to Paris, and to my own lodgings, that it was my misfortune to make a discovery relating to my wife which was not at all to my satisfaction; for I found her ladyship had kept some company that I had reason to believe were not such as an honest woman ought to have conversed with, and as I knew her temper by what I had found of her myself, I grew very jealous and uneasy about her. I must own it touched me very nearly, for I began to have an extraordinary value for her, and her behaviour was very taking, especially after I had brought her into France; but having a vein of levity, it was impossible to prevent her running into such things in a town so full of what they call gallantry as Paris.
It vexed me also to think that it should be my fate to be a cuckold both abroad and at home, and sometimes I would be in such a rage about it that I had no government of myself when I thought of it. Whole days, and I may say sometimes whole nights, I spent musing and considering what I should do to her, and especially what I should do to the villain, whoever he was, that had thus abused and supplanted me. Here indeed I committed murder more than once, or indeed than a hundred times, in my imagination; and, as the devil is certainly an apparent prompter to wickedness, if he is not the first mover of it in our minds, he teased me night and day with proposals to kill my wife.
This horrid project he carried up so high, by raising fierce thoughts and fomenting the blood upon my contemplation of the word cuckold, that, in short, I left debating whether I should murder her or no, as a thing out of the question, and determined; and my thoughts were then taken up only with the management how I should kill her, and how to make my escape after I had done it.
All this while I had no sufficient evidence of her guilt, neither had I so much as charged her with it or let her know I suspected her, otherwise than as she might perceive it in my conduct, and in the change of my behaviour to her, which was such that she could not but perceive that something troubled me. Yet she took no notice of it to me, but received me very well, and showed herself to be glad of my return. Nor did I find she had been extravagant in her expenses while I was abroad. But jealousy, as the wise man says, is the wrath of a man; her being so good a hussy at what money I had left her gave my distempered fancy an opinion that she had been maintained by other people, and so had had no occasion to spend.
I must confess she had a difficult point here upon her, though she had been really honest; for, as my head was prepossessed of her dishonesty, if she had been lavish I should have said she had spent it upon her gentlemen; and as she had been frugal, I said she had been maintained by them. Thus, I say, my head was distempered; I believed myself abused, and nothing could put it out of my thoughts night or day.
All this while it was not visibly broken out between us; but I was so fully possessed with the belief of it that I seemed to want no evidence, and I looked with an evil eye upon everybody that came near her or that she conversed with. There was an officer of the Guards du Corps that lodged in the same house with us, a very honest gentleman and a man of quality. I happened to be in a little drawing-room adjoining to a parlour where my wife sat at that time, and this gentleman came into the parlour, which, as he was one of the family, he might have done without offence; but he, not knowing that I was in the drawing-room, sat down and talked with my wife. I heard every word they said, for the door between us was open; nor could I say that there passed anything between them but cursory discourse. They talked of casual things, of a young lady, a burgher’s daughter of nineteen, that had been married the week before to an advocate in the Parliament of Paris, vastly rich, and about sixty-three; and of another, a widow lady of fortune in Paris, that had married her deceased husband’svalet de chamber; and of such casual matters, that I could find no fault with her now at all.
But it filled my head with jealous thoughts and fired my temper. Now I fancied he used too much freedom with her, then that she used too much freedom to him, and once or twice I was upon the point of breaking in upon them and affronting them both, but I restrained myself. At length he talked some thing merrily of the lady throwing away her maiden head, as I understood it, upon an old man; but still it was nothing indecent. But I, who was all on fire already, could bear it no longer, but started up and came into the room, and catching at my wife’s words, “Say you so, madam?” said I. “Was he too old for her?” and giving the officer a look that I fancy was something akin to the face on the sign called the Bull and Mouth, within Aldersgate, I went out into the street.
The marquis—so he was styled—a man of honour and of spirit too, took it as I meant it, and followed me in a moment and “hemmed” after me in the street; upon which I stopped, and he came up to me. “Sir,” said he, “our circumstances are very unhappy in France, that we cannot do ourselves justice here without the most severe treatment in the world. But, come on it what will, you must explain yourself to me on the subject of your behaviour just now.”
I was a little cooled as to the point of my conduct to him in the very few moments that had passed, and was very sensible that I was wrong to him; and I said, therefore, to him, very frankly, “Sir, you are a gentleman whom I know very well, and I have a very great respect for you; but I had been disturbed a little about the conduct of my wife, and were it your own case, what would you have done less?”
“I am sorry for any dislike between you and your wife,” says he; “but what is that to me? Can you charge me with any indecency to her, except my talking so and so?” (at which he repeated the words); “and as I knew you were in the next room and heard every word, and that all the doors were open, I thought no man could have taken amiss so innocent an expression.”
“I could no otherwise take it amiss,” said I, “than as I thought it implied a farther familiarity, and that you cannot expect should be borne by any man of honour. However, sir,” said I, “I spoke only to my wife. I said nothing to you, but gave you my hat as I passed you.”
“Yes,” said he, “and a look as full of rage as the devil. Are there no words in such looks?”
“I can say nothing to that,” said I, “for I cannot see my own countenance; but my rage, as you call it, was at my wife, not at you.”
“But hark you, sir,” said he, growing warm as I grew calm, “your anger at your wife was for her discourse with me, and I think that concerns me too, and I ought to resent it.”
“I think not, sir,” said I; “nor, had I found you in bed with my wife, would I have quarrelled with you; for if my wife will let you lie with her, it is she is the offender. What have I to do with you? You could not lie with her if she was not willing; and if she is willing to be a whore, I ought to punish her; but I should have no quarrel with you. I will lie with your wife if I can, and then I am even with you.”
I spoke this all in good humour and in order to pacify him, but it would not do; but he would have me give him satisfaction, as he called it. I told him I was a stranger in the country, and perhaps should find little mercy in their course of justice; that it was not my business to fight any man in his vindicating his keeping company with my wife, for that the injury was mine, in having a bad woman to deal with; that there was no reason in the thing, that after any man should have found the way into my bed, I, who am injured, should go and stake my life upon an equal hazard against the man who has abused me.
Nothing would prevail with this person to be quiet for all this; but I had affronted him, and no satisfaction could be made him but that at the point of the sword; so we agreed to go away together to Lisle, in Flanders. I was now soldier enough not to be afraid to look a man in the face, and as the rage at my wife inspired me with courage, so he let fall a word that fired and provoked me beyond all patience; for, speaking of the distrust I had of my wife, he said, unless I had good information I ought not to suspect my wife. I told him, if I had good information, I should be past suspicion. He replied, if he was the happy man, that had so much of her favour, he would take care then to put me past the suspicion. I gave him as rough an answer as he could desire, and he returned in French,“Nous verrons à Lisle;” that is to say, “We will talk further of it at Lisle.”
I told him I did not see the benefit either to him or me of going so far as Lisle to decide this quarrel, since now I perceived he was the man I wanted; that we might decide this quarrelau champ, upon the spot, and whoever had the fortune to fall the other might make his escape to Lisle as well afterwards as before.
Thus we walked on talking very ill-naturedly on both sides, and yet very mannerly, till we came clear of the suburbs of Paris, on the way to Charenton; when, seeing the way clear, I told him under those trees was a very fit place for us, pointing to a row of trees adjoining to Monsieur ——’s garden-wall. So we went thither, and fell to work immediately. After some fencing he made a home-thrust at me, and run me into my arm, a long slanting wound, but at the same time received my point into his body, and soon after fell. He spoke some words before he dropped; first he told me I had killed him; then he said he had indeed wronged me, and as he knew it, he ought not to have fought me. He desired I would make my escape immediately, which I did into the city, but no farther, nobody, as I thought, having seen us together. In the afternoon, about six hours after the action, messengers brought news, one on the heels of another, that the marquis was mortally wounded, and carried into a house at Charenton. That account, saying he was not dead, surprised me a little, not doubting but that, concluding I had made my escape, he would own who it was. However, I discovered nothing of my concern, but, going up into my chamber, I took out of a cabinet there what money I had, which indeed was so much as I thought would be sufficient for my expenses. But having an accepted bill for two thousand livres, I walked sedately to a merchant who knew me, and got fifty pistoles of him upon my bill, letting him know my business called me to England, and I would take the rest of him when he had received it.
Having furnished myself thus, I provided me a horse for my servant, for I had one very good one of my own, and once more ventured home to my lodging, where I heard again that the marquis was not dead. My wife all this while covered her concern for the marquis so well that she gave me no room to make any remark upon her; but she saw evidently the marks of rage and deep resentment in my behaviour after some little stay, and perceiving me making preparation for a journey, she said to me, “Are you going out of town?” “Yes, madam,” says I, “that you may have room to mourn for your friend the marquis;” at which she started, and showed she was indeed in a most terrible fright, and making a thousand crosses about herself, with a great many callings upon the Blessed Virgin and her country saints, she burst out at last, “Is it possible? Are you the man that has killed the marquis? Then you are undone, and I too.”
“You may, madam, be a loser by the marquis being killed; but I’ll take care to be as little a loser by you as I can. ’Tis enough; the marquis has honestly confessed your guilt, and I have done with you.” She would have thrown herself into my arms, protesting her innocence, and told me she would fly with me, and would convince me of her fidelity by such testimonies as I could not but be satisfied with, but I thrust her violently from me. “Allez, infame!” said I. “Go, infamous creature, and take from me the necessity I should be under, if I stayed, of sending you to keep company with your dear friend the marquis.” I thrust her away with such force that she fell backward upon the floor, and cried out most terribly, and indeed she had reason, for she was very much hurt.
It grieved me indeed to have thrust her away with such force, but you must consider me now in the circumstances of a man enraged, and, as it were, out of himself, furious and mad. However, I took her up from the floor and laid her on the bed, and calling up her maid, bid her go and take care of her mistress; and, going soon after out of doors, I took horse and made the best of my way, not towards Calais or Dunkirk, or towards Flanders, whither it might be suggested I was fled, and whither they did pursue me the same evening, but I took the direct road for Lorraine, and riding all night and very hard, I passed the Maine the next day at night, at Chalons, and came safe into the Duke of Lorraine’s dominions the third day, where I rested one day only to consider what course to take; for it was still a most difficult thing to pass any way, but that I should either be in the king of France’s dominions or be taken by the French allies as a subject of France. But getting good advice from a priest at Bar le Duc, who, though I did not tell him the particulars of my case, yet guessed how it was, it being, as he said, very usual for gentlemen in my circumstances to fly that way;—upon this supposition, this kindpadregot me a church pass; that is to say, he made me a purveyor for the abbey of ——, and, as such, got me a passport to go to Deux Ponts, which belonged to the king of Sweden. Having such authority there, and the priest’s recommendation to an ecclesiastic in the place, I got passports from thence in the king of Sweden’s name to Cologne, and then I was thoroughly safe. So, making my way to the Netherlands without any difficulty, I came to the Hague, and from thence, though very privately and by several names, I came to England. And thus I got clear of my Italian wife—whore I should have called her; for, after I had made her so myself, how should I expect any other of her?
Being arrived at London, I wrote to my friend at Paris, but dated my letters from the Hague, where I ordered him to direct his answers. The chief business of my writing was to know if my bill was paid him, to inquire if any pursuit was made after me, and what other news he had about me or my wife, and particularly how it had fared with the marquis.
I received an answer in a few days, importing that he had received the money on my bill, which he was ready to pay as I should direct; that the marquis was not dead; “but,” said he, “you have killed him another way, for he has lost his commission in the Guards, which was worth to him twenty thousand livres, and he is yet a close prisoner in the Bastile;” that pursuit was ordered after me upon suspicion; that they had followed me to Amiens, on the road to Dunkirk, and to Chastean de Cambresis, on the way to Flanders, but missing me that way, had given it over; that the marquis had been too well instructed to own that he had fought with me, but said that he was assaulted on the road, and unless I could be taken, he would take his trial and come off for want of proof; that my flying was a circumstance indeed that moved strongly against him, because it was known that we had had some words that day, and were seen to walk together, but that, nothing being proved on either side, he would come off with the loss of his commission, which, however, being very rich, he could bear well enough.
As to my wife, he wrote me word she was inconsolable, and had cried herself to death almost; but he added (very ill-natured indeed), whether it was for me or for the marquis, that he could not determine. He likewise told me she was in very bad circumstances and very low, so that, if I did not take some care of her, she would come to be in very great distress.
The latter part of this story moved me indeed, for I thought, however it was, I ought not to let her starve; and, besides, poverty was a temptation which a woman could not easily withstand, and I ought not to be the instrument to drive her to a horrid necessity of crime, if I could prevent it.
Upon this I wrote to him again to go to her, and talk with her, and learn as much as he could of her particular circumstances; and that, if he found she was really in want, and, particularly, that she did not live a scandalous life, he should give her twenty pistoles, and tell her, if she would engage to live retired and honestly, she should have so much annually, which was enough to subsist her.
She took the first twenty pistoles, but bade him tell me that I had wronged her and unjustly charged her, and I ought to do her justice; and I had ruined her by exposing her in such a manner as I had, having no proof of my charge or ground for any suspicion; that, as to twenty pistoles a year, it was a mean allowance to a wife that had travelled over the world, as she had done with me, and the like; and so expostulated with him to obtain forty pistoles a year of me, which I consented to. But she never gave me the trouble of paying above one year; for after that the marquis was so fond of her again that he took her away to himself, and, as my friend wrote me word, had settled four hundred crowns a year on her, and I never heard any more of her.
I was now in London, but was obliged to be very retired and change my name, letting nobody in the nation know who I was, except my merchant by whom I corresponded with my people in Virginia; and particularly with my tutor, who was now become the head manager of my affairs, and was in very good circumstances himself also by my means. But he deserved all I did or could do for him, for he was a most faithful friend as well as servant, as ever man had, in that country at least.
I was not the easiest man alive, in the retired, solitary manner I now lived in; and I experienced the truth of the text, that “it is not good for man to be alone,” for I was extremely melancholy and heavy, and indeed knew not what to do with myself, particularly because I was under some restraint, that I was too afraid to go abroad. At last I resolved to go quite away, and go to Virginia again, and there live retired as I could.
But when I came to consider that part more narrowly, I could not prevail with myself to live a private life. I had got a wandering kind of taste, and knowledge of things begat a desire of increasing it, and an exceeding delight I had in it, though I had nothing to do in the armies or in war, and did not design ever to meddle with it again. Yet I could not live in the world and not inquire what was doing in it; nor could I think of living in Virginia, where I was to hear my news twice a year, and read the public accounts of what was just then upon the stocks, as the history of things past.
This was my notion: I was now in my native country, where my circumstances were easy, and though I had ill-luck abroad, for I brought little money home with me, yet, by a little good management, I might soon have money by me. I had nobody to keep but myself, and my plantations in Virginia generally returned me from £400 to £600 a year, one year above £700, and to go thither, I concluded, was to be buried alive; so I put off all thoughts of it, and resolved to settle somewhere in England where I might know everybody and nobody know me. I was not long in concluding where to pitch, for as I spoke the French tongue perfectly well, having been so many years among them, it was easy for me to pass for a Frenchman. So I went to Canterbury, called myself an Englishman among the French, and a Frenchman among the English; and on that score was the more perfectly concealed, going by the name of Monsieur Charnot with the French, and was called Mr. Charnock among the English.
Here indeed I lived perfectly incog. I made no particular acquaintance so as to be intimate, and yet I knew everybody, and everybody knew me. I discoursed in common, talked French with the Walloons, and English with the English; and lived retired and sober, and was well enough received by all sorts; but as I meddled with nobody’s business, so nobody meddled with mine; I thought I lived pretty well.
But I was not fully satisfied. A settled family life was the thing I loved; had made two pushes at it, as you have heard, but with ill-success; yet the miscarriage of what was past did not discourage me at all, but I resolved to marry. I looked out for a woman as suitable as I could, but always found some thing or other to shock my fancy, except once a gentleman’s daughter of good fashion; but I met with so many repulses of one kind or another that I was forced to give it over; and indeed, though I might be said to be a lover in this suit, and had managed myself so well with the young lady that I had no difficulty left but what would soon have been adjusted, yet her father was so difficult, made so many objections, was to-day not pleased one way, to-morrow another, that he would stand by nothing that he himself had proposed, nor could he be ever brought to be of the same mind two days together; so that we at last put an end to the pretensions, for she would not marry without her father’s consent, and I would not steal her, and so that affair ended.
I cannot say but I was a little vexed at the disappointment of this, so I left the city of Canterbury and went to London in the stage-coach. Here I had an odd scene presented as ever happened of its kind.
There was in the stage-coach a young woman and her maid. She was sitting in a very melancholy posture, for she was in the coach before me, and sighed most dreadfully all the way, and whenever her maid spoke to her she burst out into tears. I was not long in the coach with her but, seeing she made such a dismal figure, I offered to comfort her a little, and inquired into the occasion of her affliction. But she would not speak a word; but her maid, with a force of crying too, said her master was dead, at which word the lady burst out again into a passion of crying, and between mistress and maid this was all I could get for the morning part of that day. When we came to dine, I offered the lady, that seeing, I supposed, she would not dine with the company, if she would please to dine with me, I would dine in a separate room; for the rest of the company were foreigners. Her maid thanked me in her mistresses name, but her mistress could eat nothing, and desired to be private.
Here, however, I had some discourse with the maid, from whom I learned that the lady was wife to a captain of a ship, who was outward bound to somewhere in the Straits—I think it was to Zante and Venice; that, being gone no farther than the Downs, he was taken sick, and after about ten days’ illness had died at Deal; that his wife, hearing of his sickness, had gone to Deal to see him, and had come but just time enough to see him die; had stayed there to bury him, and was now coming to London in a sad, disconsolate condition indeed.
I heartily pitied the young gentlewoman indeed, and said some things to her in the coach to let her know I did so, which she gave no answer to, but in civility now and then made a bow, but never gave me the least opportunity to see her face, or so much as to know whether she had a face or no, much less to guess what form of a face it was. It was winter time, and the coach put up at Rochester, not going through in a day, as was usual in summer; and a little before we came to Rochester I told the lady I understood she had ate nothing to-day, that such a course would but make her sick, and, doing her harm, could do her deceased husband no good; and therefore I entreated her that, as I was a stranger, and only offered a civility to her in order to abate her severely afflicting herself, she would yield so far to matters of ceremony as let us sup together as passengers; for, as to the strangers, they did not seem to understand the custom or to desire it.
She bowed, but gave no answer; only, after pressing her by arguments, which she could not deny was very civil and kind, she returned, she gave me thanks, but she could not eat. “Well, madam,” said I, “do but sit down; though you think you cannot eat, perhaps you may eat a bit. Indeed you must eat, or you will destroy yourself at this rate of living, and upon the road too; in a word, you will be sick indeed.” I argued with her. The maid put in, and said, “Do, madam; pray try to divert yourself a little.” I pressed her again, and she bowed to me very respectfully, but still said, “No,” and she could not eat. The maid continued to importune her, and said, “Dear madam, do. The gentleman is a civil gentleman; pray, madam, do;” and then, turning to me, said, “My mistress will, sir, I hope,” and seemed pleased, and indeed was so.
However, I went on to persuade her; and, taking no notice of what her maid said, that I was a civil gentleman, I told her, “I am a stranger to you, madam; but if I thought you were shy of me on any account, as to civility, I will send my supper up to you in your own chamber, and stay below myself.” She bowed then to me twice, and looked up, which was the first time, and said she had no suspicion of that kind; that my offer was so civil that she was as much ashamed to refuse it as she should be ashamed to accept it, if she was where she was known; that she thought I was not quite a stranger to her, for she had seen me before; that she would accept my offer so far as to sit at table, because I desired it; but she could not promise me to eat, and that she hoped I would take the other as a constraint upon her, in return to so much kindness.
She startled me when she said she had seen me before; for I had not the least knowledge of her, nor did I remember so much as to have heard of her name; for I had asked her name of her maid; and indeed it made me almost repent my compliment, for it was many ways essential to me not to be known. However, I could not go back; and, besides, if I was known, it was essentially necessary to me to know who it was that knew me, and by what circumstances; so I went on with my compliment.
We came to the inn but just before it was dark. I offered to hand my widow out of the coach, and she could not decline it; but though her hoods were not then much over her face, yet, being dark, I could see little of her then. I waited on her then into the stairfoot, and led her up the inn-stairs to a dining-room which the master of the house offered to show us, as if for the whole company; but she declined going in there, and said she desired rather to go directly to her chamber, and turning to her maid, bade her speak to the innkeeper to show her to her lodging-room. So I waited on her to the door, and took my leave, telling her I would expect her at supper.
In order to treat her moderately well, and not extravagantly, for I had no thoughts of anything farther than civility, which was the effect of mere compassion for the unhappiness of the most truly disconsolate woman that I ever met with; I say, in order to treat her handsomely, but not extravagantly, I provided what the house afforded, which was a couple of partridges and a very good dish of stewed oysters. They brought us up afterwards a neat’s tongue and a ham that was almost cut quite down, but we ate none of it; for the other was fully enough for us both, and the maid made her supper off the oysters we had left, which were enough.
I mention this because it should appear I did not treat her as a person I was making any court to, for I had nothing of that in my thoughts; but merely in pity to the poor woman, who I saw in a circumstance that was indeed very unhappy.
When I gave her maid notice that supper was ready, she fetched her mistress, coming in before her with a candle in her hand, and then it was that I saw her face, and being in her dishabille, she had no hood over her eyes or black upon her head, when I was truly surprised to see one of the most beautiful faces upon earth. I saluted her, and led her to the fireside, the table, though spread, being too far from the fire, the weather being cold.
She was now something sociable, though very grave, and sighed often on account of her circumstances. But she so handsomely governed her grief, yet so artfully made it mingle itself with all her discourse, that it added exceedingly to her behaviour, which was every way most exquisitely genteel. I had a great deal of discourse with her, and upon many subjects, and by degrees took her name, that is to say, from herself, as I had done before from her maid; also the place where she lived, viz., near Ratcliff, or rather Stepney, where I asked her leave to pay her a visit when she thought fit to admit company, which she seemed to intimate would not be a great while.
It is a subject too surfeiting to entertain people with the beauty of a person they will never see. Let it suffice to tell them she was the most beautiful creature of her sex that I ever saw before or since; and it cannot be wondered if I was charmed with her the very first moment I saw her face. Her behaviour was likewise a beauty in itself, and was so extraordinary that I cannot say I can describe it.
The next day she was much more free than she was the first night, and I had so much conversation as to enter into particulars of things on both sides; also she gave me leave to come and see her house, which, however, I did not do under a fortnight or thereabouts, because I did not know how far she would dispense with the ceremony which it was necessary to keep up at the beginning of the mourning.
However, I came as a man that had business with her, relating to the ship her husband was dead out of, and the first time I came was admitted; and, in short, the first time I came I made love to her. She received that proposal with disdain. I cannot indeed say she treated me with any disrespect, but she said she abhorred the offer, and would hear no more of it. How I came to make such a proposal to her I scarce knew then, though it was very much my intention from the first.
In the meantime I inquired into her circumstances and her character, and heard nothing but what was very agreeable of them both; and, above all, I found she had the report of the best-humoured lady and the best-bred of all that part of the town; and now I thought I had found what I had so often wished for to make me happy and had twice miscarried in, and resolved not to miss her, if it was possible to obtain her.
It came indeed a little into my thoughts that I was a married man, and had a second wife alive, who, though she was false to me and a whore, yet I was not legally divorced from her, and that she was my wife for all that. But I soon got over that part; for, first, as she was a whore, and the marquis had confessed it to me, I was divorced in law, and I had a power to put her away. But having had the misfortune of fighting a duel, and being obliged to quit the country, I could not claim the legal process which was my right, and therefore might conclude myself as much divorced as if it had been actually done, and so that scruple vanished.
I suffered now two months to run without pressing my widow any more, only I kept a strict watch to find if any one else pretended to her. At the end of two months I visited her again, when I found she received me with more freedom, and we had no more sighs and sobs about the last husband; and though she would not let me press my former proposal so far as I thought I might have done, yet I found I had leave to come again, and it was the article of decency which she stood upon as much as anything; that I was not disagreeable to her, and that my using her so handsomely upon the road had given me a great advantage in her favour.
I went on gradually with her, and gave her leave to stand off for two months more. But then I told her the matter of decency, which was but a ceremony, was not to stand in competition with the matter of affection; and, in short, I could not bear any longer delay, but that, if she thought fit, we might marry privately; and, to cut the story short, as I did my courtship, in about five months I got her in the mind, and we were privately married, and that with so very exact a concealment that her maid, that was so instrumental in it, yet had no knowledge of it for near a month more.
I was now, not only in my imagination, but in reality, the most happy creature in the world, as I was so infinitely satisfied with my wife, who was indeed the best-humoured woman in the world, a most accomplished, beautiful creature indeed, perfectly well-bred, and had not one ill quality about her; and this happiness continued without the least interruption for about six years.
But I, that was to be the most unhappy fellow alive in the article of matrimony, had at last a disappointment of the worst sort even here. I had three fine children by her, and in her time of lying-in with the last she got some cold, that she did not in a long time get off; and, in short, she grew very sickly. In being so continually ill and out of order, she very unhappily got a habit of drinking cordials and hot liquors. Drink, like the devil, when it gets hold of any one, though but a little, it goes on by little and little to their destruction. So in my wife, her stomach being weak and faint, she first took this cordial, then that, till, in short, she could not live without them, and from a drop to a sup, from a sup to a dram, from a dram to a glass, and so on to two, till at last she took, in short, to what we call drinking.
As I likened drink to the devil, in its gradual possession of the habits and person, so it is yet more like the devil in its encroachment on us, where it gets hold of our senses. In short, my beautiful, good-humoured, modest, well-bred wife grew a beast, a slave to strong liquor, and would be drunk at her own table—nay, in her own closet by herself, till, instead of a well-made, fine shape, she was as fat as a hostess; her fine face, bloated and blotched, had not so much as the ruins of the most beautiful person alive—nothing remained but a good eye; that indeed she held to the last. In short, she lost her beauty, her shape, her manners, and at last her virtue; and, giving herself up to drinking, killed herself in about a year and a half after she first began that cursed trade, in which time she twice was exposed in the most scandalous manner with a captain of a ship, who, like a villain, took the advantage of her being in drink and not knowing what she did. But it had this unhappy effect, that instead of her being ashamed and repenting of it when she came to herself, it hardened her in the crime, and she grew as void of modesty at last as of sobriety.
Oh, the power of intemperance! and how it encroaches on the best dispositions in the world; how it comes upon us gradually and insensibly; and what dismal effects it works upon our morals, changing the most virtuous, regular, well-instructed, and well-inclined tempers into worse than brutal! That was a good story, whether real or invented, of the devil tempting a young man to murder his father. No, he said; that was unnatural. “Why, then,” says the devil, “go and lie with your mother.” “No,” says he; “that is abominable.” “Well, then,” says the devil, “if you will do nothing else to oblige me, go and get drunk.” “Ay, ay,” says the fellow, “I will do that.” So he went and made himself drunk as a swine, and when he was drunk, he murdered his father and lay with his mother.
Never was a woman more virtuous, modest, chaste, sober; she never so much as desired to drink any thing strong; it was with the greatest entreaty that I could prevail with her to drink a glass or two of wine, and rarely, if ever, above one or two at a time; even in company she had no inclination to it. Not an immodest word ever came out of her mouth, nor would she suffer it in any one else in her hearing without resentment and abhorrence. But upon that weakness and illness after her last lying-in, as above, the nurse pressed her, whenever she found herself faint and a sinking of her spirits, to take this cordial and that dram, to keep up her spirits, till it became necessary even to keep her alive, and gradually increased to a habit, so that it was no longer her physic but her food. Her appetite sunk and went quite away, and she ate little or nothing, but came at last to such a dreadful height that, as I have said, she would be drunk in her own dressing-room by eleven o’clock in the morning, and, in short, at last was never sober.
In this life of hellish excess, as I have said, she lost all that was before so valuable in her, and a villain, if it be proper to call a man who was really a gentleman by such a name, who was an intimate acquaintance, coming to pretend a visit to her, made her and her maid so drunk together that he lay with them both; with the mistress, the maid being in the room, and with the maid, the mistress being in the room; after which he, it seems, took the like liberty with them both as often as he thought fit, till the wench, being with child, discovered it for herself, and for her mistress too. Let any one judge what was my case now. I, that for six years thought myself the happiest man alive, was now the most miserable, distracted creature. As to my wife, I loved her so well, and was so sensible of the disaster of her drinking being the occasion of it all, that I could not resent it to such a degree as I had done in her predecessor; but I pitied her heartily. However, I put away all her servants, and almost locked her up; that is to say, I set new people over her, who would not suffer any one to come near her without my knowledge.
But what to do with the villain that had thus abused both her and me, that was the question that remained. To fight him upon equal terms, I thought, was a little hard; that after a man had treated me as he had done, he deserved no fair play for his life. So I resolved to wait for him in Stepney fields, and which way he often came home pretty late, and pistol him in the dark, and, if possible, to let him know what I killed him for before I did it. But when I came to consider of this, it shocked my temper too as well as principle, and I could not be a murderer, whatever else I could be, or whatever I was provoked to be.
However, I resolved, on the other hand, that I would severely correct him for what he had done, and it was not long before I had an opportunity; for, hearing one morning that he was walking across the fields from Stepney to Shadwell, which way I knew he often went, I waited for his coming home again, and fairly met him.
I had not many words with him, but told him I had long looked for him; that he knew the villainy he had been guilty of in my family, and he could not believe, since he knew also that I was fully informed of it, but that I must be a great coward, as well as a cuckold, or that I would resent it, and that it was now a very proper time to call him to an account for it; and therefore bade him, if he durst show his face to what he had done, and defend the name of a captain of a man-of-war, as they said he had been, to draw.
He seemed surprised at the thing, and began to parley, and would lessen the crime of it; but I told him it was not a time to talk that way, since he could not deny the fact; and to lessen the crime was to lay it the more upon the woman, who, I was sure, if he had not first debauched with wine, he could never have brought to the rest; and, seeing he refused to draw, I knocked him down with my cane at one blow, and I would not strike him again while he lay on the ground, but waited to see him recover a little; for I saw plainly he was not killed. In a few minutes he came to himself again, and then I took him fast by one wrist, and caned him as severely as I was able, and as long as I could hold it for want of breath, but forbore his head, because I was resolved he should feel it. In this condition at last he begged for mercy, but I was deaf to all pity a great while, till he roared out like a boy soundly whipped. Then I took his sword from him and broke it before his face, and left him on the ground, giving him two or three kicks on the backside, and bade him go and take the law of me if he thought fit.
I had now as much satisfaction as indeed could be taken of a coward, and had no more to say to him; but as I knew it would make a great noise about the town, I immediately removed my family, and, that I might be perfectly concealed, went into the north of England, and lived in a little town called ——, not far from Lancaster, where I lived retired, and was no more heard of for about two years. My wife, though more confined than she used to be, and so kept up from the lewd part which, I believe, in the intervals of her intemperance, she was truly ashamed of and abhorred, yet retained the drinking part, which becoming, as I have said, necessary for her subsistence, she soon ruined her health, and in about a year and a half after my removal into the north she died.
Thus I was once more a free man, and, as one would think, should by this time have been fully satisfied that matrimony was not appointed to be a state of felicity to me.
I should have mentioned that the villain of a captain who I had drubbed, as above, pretended to make a great stir about my assaulting him on the highway, and that I had fallen upon him with three ruffians, with an intent to murder him; and this began to obtain belief among the people in the neighbourhood. I sent him word of so much of it as I had heard, and told him I hoped it did not come from his own mouth; but if it did, I expected he would publicly disown it, he himself declaring he knew it to be false, or else I should be forced to act the same thing over again, till I had disciplined him into better manners; and that he might be assured that if he continued to pretend that I had anybody with me when I caned him, I would publish the whole story in print, and, besides that, would cane him again wherever I met him, and as often as I met him, till he thought fit to defend himself with his sword like a gentleman.
He gave me no answer to this letter; and the satisfaction I had for that was, that I gave twenty or thirty copies of it about among the neighbours, which made it as public as if I had printed it (that is, as to his acquaintance and mine), and made him so hissed at and hated that he was obliged to remove into some other part of the town—whither I did not inquire.
My wife being now dead, I knew not what course to take in the world, and I grew so disconsolate and discouraged that I was next door to being distempered, and sometimes, indeed, I thought myself a little touched in my head. But it proved nothing but vapours and the vexation of this affair, and in about a year’s time, or thereabouts, it wore off again.
I had rambled up and down in a most discontented, unsettled posture after this, I say, about a year, and then I considered I had three innocent children, and I could take no care of them, and that I must either go away and leave them to the wide world or settle here and get somebody to look after them, and that better a mother-in-law than no mother; for to live such a wandering life it would not do; so I resolved I would marry as anything offered, though it was mean, and the meaner the better. I concluded my next wife should be only taken as an upper servant; that is to say, a nurse to my children and housekeeper to myself; “and let her be whore or honest woman,” said I, “as she likes best; I am resolved I will not much concern myself about that;” for I was now one desperate, that valued not how things went.
In this careless, and indeed rash, foolish humour, I talked to myself thus: “If I marry an honest woman, my children will be taken care of; if she be a slut and abuses me, as I see everybody does, I will kidnap her and send her to Virginia, to my plantations there, and there she shall work hard enough and fare hard enough to keep her chaste, I’ll warrant her.”
I knew well enough at first that these were mad, hare-brained notions, and I thought no more of being serious in them than I thought of being a man in the moon; but I know not how it happened to me, I reasoned and talked to myself in this wild manner so long that I brought myself to be seriously desperate; that is, to resolve upon another marriage, with all the suppositions of unhappiness that could be imagined to fall out.
And yet even this rash resolution of my senses did not come presently to action; for I was half a year after this before I fixed upon anything. At last, as he that seeks mischief shall certainly find it, so it was with me. There happened to be a young, or rather a middle-aged, woman in the next town, which was but a half-mile off, who usually was at my house and among my children every day when the weather was tolerable; and though she came but merely as a neighbour, and to see us, yet she was always helpful in directing and ordering things for them, and mighty handy about them, as well before my wife died as after.
Her father was one that I employed often to go to Liverpool, and sometimes to Whitehaven, and do business for me; for having, as it were, settled myself in the northern parts of England, I had ordered part of my effects to be shipped, as occasion of shipping offered, to either of those two towns, to which, the war continuing very sharp, it was safer coming, as to privateers, than about through the Channel to London.
I took a mighty fancy at last that this girl would answer my end, particularly that I saw she was mighty useful among the children; so, on the other hand, the children loved her very well, and I resolved to love her too, flattering myself mightily, that as I had married two gentlewomen and one citizen, and they proved all three whores, I should now find what I wanted in an innocent country wench.
I took up a world of time in considering of this matter; indeed scarce any of my matches were done without very mature consideration. The second was the worst in that article, but in this I thought of it, I believe, four months most seriously before I resolved, and that very prudence spoiled the whole thing. However, at last being resolved, I took Mrs. Margaret one day as she passed by my parlour-door, called her in, and told her I wanted to speak with her. She came readily in, but blushed mightily when I bade her sit down in a chair just by me.
I used no great ceremony with her, but told her that I had observed she had been mighty kind to my children, and was very tender to them, and that they all loved her, and that, if she and I could agree about it, I intended to make her their mother, if she was not engaged to somebody else. The girl sat still and said never a word till I said those words, “if she was not engaged to somebody else;” when she seemed struck. However, I took no notice of it, other than this, “Look ye, Moggy,” said I (so they call them in the country), “if you have promised yourself, you must tell me.” For we all knew that a young fellow, a good clergyman’s wicked son, had hung about her a great while, two or three years, and made love to her, but could never get the girl in the mind, it seems, to have him.
She knew I was not ignorant of it, and therefore, after her first surprise was over, she told me Mr. —— had, as I knew, often come after her, but she had never promised him anything, and had for several years refused him; her father always telling her that he was a wicked fellow, and that he would be her ruin if she had him.
“Well, Moggy, then,” says I, “what dost say to me? Art thou free to make me a wife?” She blushed and looked down upon the ground, and would not speak a good while; but when I pressed her to tell me, she looked up, and said she supposed I was but jesting with her. Well, I got over that, and told her I was in very good earnest with her, and I took her for a sober, honest, modest girl, and, as I said, one that my children loved mighty well, and I was in earnest with her; if she would give me her consent, I would give her my word that I would have her, and we would be married to-morrow morning. She looked up again at that, and smiled a little, and said no, that was too soon too to say yes. She hoped I would give her some time to consider of it, and to talk with her father about it.
I told her she needed not much time to consider about it; but, however, I would give her till to-morrow morning, which was a great while. By this time I had kissed Moggy two or three times, and she began to be freer with me; and when I pressed her to marry me the next morning, she laughed, and told me it was not lucky to be married in her old clothes.
I stopped her mouth presently with that, and told her she should not be married in her old clothes, for I would give her some new. “Ay, it may be afterwards,” says Moggy, and laughed again. “No, just now,” says I. “Come along with me, Moggy;” so I carried her upstairs into my wife’s room that was, and showed her a new morning-gown of my wife’s, that she had never worn above two or three times, and several other fine things. “Look you there, Moggy,” says I, “there is a wedding-gown for you; give me your hand now that you will have me to-morrow morning. And as to your father, you know he has gone to Liverpool on my business, but I will answer for it he shall not be angry when he comes home to call his master son-in-law; and I ask him no portion. Therefore give me thy hand for it, Moggy,” says I very merrily to her, and kissed her again; and the girl gave me her hand, and very pleasantly too, and I was mightily pleased with it, I assure you.
There lived about three doors from us an ancient gentleman who passed for a doctor of physic, but who was really a Romish priest in orders, as there are many in that part of the country; and in the evening I sent to speak with him. He knew that I understood his profession, and that I had lived in popish countries, and, in a word, believed me a Roman too, for I was such abroad. When he came to me I told him the occasion for which I sent for him, and that it was to be to-morrow morning. He readily told me, if I would come and see him in the evening, and bring Moggy with me, he would marry us in his own study, and that it was rather more private to do it in the evening than in the morning. So I called Moggy again to me, and told her, since she and I had agreed the matter for to-morrow, it was as well to be done overnight, and told her what the doctor had said.
Moggy blushed again, and said she must go home first, that she could not be ready before to-morrow. “Look ye, Moggy,” says I, “you are my wife now, and you shall never go away from me a maid. I know what you mean; you would go home to shift you. Come, Moggy,” says I, “come along with me again upstairs.” So I carried her to a chest of linen, where were several new shifts of my last wife’s, which she had never worn at all, and some that had been worn.
“There is a clean smock for you, Moggy,” says I, “and to-morrow you shall have all the rest.” When I had done this, “Now, Moggy,” says I, “go and dress you;” so I locked her in, and went downstairs. “Knock,” says I, “when you are dressed.”
After some time Moggy did not knock, but down she came into my room, completely dressed, for there were several other things that I bade her take, and the clothes fitted her as if they had been made for her. It seems she slipped the lock back.
“Well, Moggy,” says I, “now you see you shan’t be married in your old clothes;” so I took her in my arms and kissed her; and well pleased I was as ever I was in my life, or with anything I ever did in my life. As soon as it was dark Moggy slipped away beforehand, as the doctor and I had agreed, to the old gentleman’s housekeeper, and I came in about half-an-hour after; and there we were married in the doctor’s study—that is to say, in his oratory or chapel, a little room within his study—and we stayed and supped with him afterwards.
Then, after a short stay more, I went home first, because I would send the children all to bed, and the other servants out of the way; and Moggy came some time after, and so we lay together that night. The next morning I let all the family know that Moggy was my wife, and my three children were rejoiced at it to the last degree. And now I was a married man a fourth time; and, in short, I was really more happy in this plain country girl than with any of all the wives I had had. She was not young, being about thirty-three, but she brought me a son the first year. She was very pretty, well-shaped, and of a merry, cheerful disposition, but not a beauty. She was an admirable family manager, loved my former children, and used them not at all the worse for having some of her own. In a word, she made me an excellent wife, but lived with me but four years, and died of a hurt she got of a fall while she was with child, and in her I had a very great loss indeed.