The History of Henry Esmond, Esq., a Colonel in the Service of Her Majesty Queen Anne

by William Makepeace Thackeray

  CHAPTER V.

  I GO ON THE VIGO BAY EXPEDITION, TASTE SALT-WATER AND SMELL POWDER.

  The first expedition in which Mr. Esmond had the honor to be engaged,rather resembled one of the invasions projected by the redoubted CaptainAvory or Captain Kidd, than a war between crowned heads, carried on bygenerals of rank and honor. On the 1st day of July, 1702, a great fleet,of a hundred and fifty sail, set sail from Spithead, under the commandof Admiral Shovell, having on board 12,000 troops, with his Grace theDuke of Ormond as the Capt.-General of the expedition. One of these12,000 heroes having never been to sea before, or, at least, only oncein his infancy, when he made the voyage to England from that unknowncountry where he was born--one of those 12,000--the junior ensign ofColonel Quin's regiment of Fusileers--was in a quite unheroic state ofcorporal prostration a few hours after sailing; and an enemy, had heboarded the ship, would have had easy work of him. From Portsmouthwe put into Plymouth, and took in fresh reinforcements. We were offFinisterre on the 31st of July, so Esmond's table-book informs him: andon the 8th of August made the rock of Lisbon. By this time the Ensignwas grown as bold as an admiral, and a week afterwards had the fortuneto be under fire for the first time--and under water, too,--his boatbeing swamped in the surf in Toros Bay, where the troops landed. Theducking of his new coat was all the harm the young soldier got in thisexpedition, for, indeed, the Spaniards made no stand before our troops,and were not in strength to do so.

  But the campaign, if not very glorious, was very pleasant. New sights ofnature, by sea and land--a life of action, beginning now for the firsttime--occupied and excited the young man. The many accidents, and theroutine of shipboard--the military duty--the new acquaintances, both ofhis comrades in arms, and of the officers of the fleet--served to cheerand occupy his mind, and waken it out of that selfish depression intowhich his late unhappy fortunes had plunged him. He felt as if the oceanseparated him from his past care, and welcomed the new era of life whichwas dawning for him. Wounds heal rapidly in a heart of two-and-twenty;hopes revive daily; and courage rallies in spite of a man. Perhaps,as Esmond thought of his late despondency and melancholy, and howirremediable it had seemed to him, as he lay in his prison a few monthsback, he was almost mortified in his secret mind at finding himself socheerful.

  To see with one's own eyes men and countries, is better than reading allthe books of travel in the world: and it was with extreme delight andexultation that the young man found himself actually on his grand tour,and in the view of people and cities which he had read about as a boy.He beheld war for the first time--the pride, pomp, and circumstance ofit, at least, if not much of the danger. He saw actually, and withhis own eyes, those Spanish cavaliers and ladies whom he had beheldin imagination in that immortal story of Cervantes, which had beenthe delight of his youthful leisure. 'Tis forty years since Mr. Esmondwitnessed those scenes, but they remain as fresh in his memory as on theday when first he saw them as a young man. A cloud, as of grief, thathad lowered over him, and had wrapped the last years of his life ingloom, seemed to clear away from Esmond during this fortunate voyage andcampaign. His energies seemed to awaken and to expand under a cheerfulsense of freedom. Was his heart secretly glad to have escaped from thatfond but ignoble bondage at home? Was it that the inferiority towhich the idea of his base birth had compelled him, vanished with theknowledge of that secret, which though, perforce, kept to himself, wasyet enough to cheer and console him? At any rate, young Esmond of thearmy was quite a different being to the sad little dependant of thekind Castlewood household, and the melancholy student of Trinity Walks;discontented with his fate, and with the vocation into which that drovehim, and thinking, with a secret indignation, that the cassock andbands, and the very sacred office with which he had once proposed toinvest himself, were, in fact, but marks of a servitude which was tocontinue all his life long. For, disguise it as he might to himself,he had all along felt that to be Castlewood's chaplain was to beCastlewood's inferior still, and that his life was but to be a long,hopeless servitude. So, indeed, he was far from grudging his old friendTom Tusher's good fortune (as Tom, no doubt, thought it). Had it been amitre and Lambeth which his friends offered him, and not a small livingand a country parsonage, he would have felt as much a slave in one caseas in the other, and was quite happy and thankful to be free.

  The bravest man I ever knew in the army, and who had been present inmost of King William's actions, as well as in the campaigns of the greatDuke of Marlborough, could never be got to tell us of any achievement ofhis, except that once Prince Eugene ordered him up a tree to reconnoitrethe enemy, which feat he could not achieve on account of the horseman'sboots he wore; and on another day that he was very nearly taken prisonerbecause of these jack-boots, which prevented him from running away.The present narrator shall imitate this laudable reserve, and doth notintend to dwell upon his military exploits, which were in truth not verydifferent from those of a thousand other gentlemen. This first campaignof Mr. Esmond's lasted but a few days; and as a score of books have beenwritten concerning it, it may be dismissed very briefly here.

  When our fleet came within view of Cadiz, our commander sent a boatwith a white flag and a couple of officers to the Governor of Cadiz, DonScipio de Brancaccio, with a letter from his Grace, in which he hopedthat as Don Scipio had formerly served with the Austrians against theFrench, 'twas to be hoped that his Excellency would now declare himselfagainst the French King, and for the Austrian in the war between KingPhilip and King Charles. But his Excellency, Don Scipio, prepared areply, in which he announced that, having served his former king withhonor and fidelity, he hoped to exhibit the same loyalty and devotiontowards his present sovereign, King Philip V.; and by the time thisletter was ready, the two officers had been taken to see the town, andthe alameda, and the theatre, where bull-fights are fought, and theconvents, where the admirable works of Don Bartholomew Murillo inspiredone of them with a great wonder and delight--such as he had never feltbefore--concerning this divine art of painting; and these sights over,and a handsome refection and chocolate being served to the Englishgentlemen, they were accompanied back to their shallop with everycourtesy, and were the only two officers of the English army that saw atthat time that famous city.

  The general tried the power of another proclamation on the Spaniards, inwhich he announced that we only came in the interest of Spain and KingCharles, and for ourselves wanted to make no conquest nor settlementin Spain at all. But all this eloquence was lost upon the Spaniards, itwould seem: the Captain-General of Andalusia would no more listen to usthan the Governor of Cadiz; and in reply to his Grace's proclamation,the Marquis of Villadarias fired off another, which those who knew theSpanish thought rather the best of the two; and of this number was HarryEsmond, whose kind Jesuit in old days had instructed him, and now hadthe honor of translating for his Grace these harmless documents of war.There was a hard touch for his Grace, and, indeed, for other generals inher Majesty's service, in the concluding sentence of the Don: "That heand his council had the generous example of their ancestors to follow,who had never yet sought their elevation in the blood or in the flightof their kings. 'Mori pro patria' was his device, which the Duke mightcommunicate to the Princess who governed England."

  Whether the troops were angry at this repartee or no, 'tis certainsomething put them in a fury; for, not being able to get possession ofCadiz, our people seized upon Port Saint Mary's and sacked it, burningdown the merchants' storehouses, getting drunk with the famous winesthere, pillaging and robbing quiet houses and convents, murdering anddoing worse. And the only blood which Mr. Esmond drew in this shamefulcampaign, was the knocking down an English sentinel with a half-pike,who was offering insult to a poor trembling nun. Is she going to turnout a beauty? or a princess? or perhaps Esmond's mother that he had lostand never seen? Alas no, it was but a poor wheezy old dropsical woman,with a wart upon her nose. But having been early taught a part of theRoman religion, he never had the horror of it that some Protestants haveshown, and seem to thi
nk to be a part of ours.

  After the pillage and plunder of St. Mary's and an assault upon a fortor two, the troops all took shipping, and finished their expedition, atany rate, more brilliantly than it had begun. Hearing that the Frenchfleet with a great treasure was in Vigo Bay, our Admirals, Rooke andHopson, pursued the enemy thither; the troops landed and carried theforts that protected the bay, Hopson passing the boom first on boardhis ship the "Torbay," and the rest of the ships, English and Dutch,following him. Twenty ships were burned or taken in the Port ofRedondilla, and a vast deal more plunder than was ever accounted for;but poor men before that expedition were rich afterwards, and so oftenwas it found and remarked that the Vigo officers came home with pocketsfull of money, that the notorious Jack Shafto, who made such a figure atthe coffeehouses and gaming-tables in London, and gave out that he hadbeen a soldier at Vigo, owned, when he was about to be hanged, thatBagshot Heath had been HIS Vigo, and that he only spoke of La Redondillato turn away people's eyes from the real place where the booty lay.Indeed, Hounslow or Vigo--which matters much? The latter was a badbusiness, though Mr. Addison did sing its praises in Latin. That honestgentleman's muse had an eye to the main chance; and I doubt whether shesaw much inspiration in the losing side.

  But though Esmond, for his part, got no share of this fabulous booty,one great prize which he had out of the campaign was, that excitement ofaction and change of scene, which shook off a great deal of his previousmelancholy. He learnt at any rate to bear his fate cheerfully. Hebrought back a browned face, a heart resolute enough, and a littlepleasant store of knowledge and observation, from that expedition, whichwas over with the autumn, when the troops were back in England again;and Esmond giving up his post of secretary to General Lumley, whosecommand was over, and parting with that officer with many kindexpressions of good will on the General's side, had leave to go toLondon, to see if he could push his fortunes any way further, and foundhimself once more in his dowager aunt's comfortable quarters at Chelsey,and in greater favor than ever with the old lady. He propitiated herwith a present of a comb, a fan, and a black mantle, such as the ladiesof Cadiz wear, and which my Lady Viscountess pronounced became her styleof beauty mightily. And she was greatily edified at hearing of thatstory of his rescue of the nun, and felt very little doubt but that herKing James's relic, which he had always dutifully worn in his desk, hadkept him out of danger, and averted the shot of the enemy. My lady madefeasts for him, introduced him to more company, and pushed his fortuneswith such enthusiasm and success, that she got a promise of a companyfor him through the Lady Marlborough's interest, who was graciouslypleased to accept of a diamond worth a couple of hundred guineas, whichMr. Esmond was enabled to present to her ladyship through his aunt'sbounty, and who promised that she would take charge of Esmond's fortune.He had the honor to make his appearance at the Queen's drawing-roomoccasionally, and to frequent my Lord Marlborough's levees. Thatgreat man received the young one with very especial favor, so Esmond'scomrades said, and deigned to say that he had received the best reportsof Mr. Esmond, both for courage and ability, whereon you may be surethe young gentleman made a profound bow, and expressed himself eager toserve under the most distinguished captain in the world.

  Whilst his business was going on thus prosperously, Esmond had hisshare of pleasure too, and made his appearance along with other younggentlemen at the coffee-houses, the theatres, and the Mall. He longed tohear of his dear mistress and her family: many a time, in the midst ofthe gayeties and pleasures of the town, his heart fondly reverted tothem; and often as the young fellows of his society were making merryat the tavern, and calling toasts (as the fashion of that day was) overtheir wine, Esmond thought of persons--of two fair women, whom he hadbeen used to adore almost, and emptied his glass with a sigh.

  By this time the elder Viscountess had grown tired again of the younger,and whenever she spoke of my lord's widow, 'twas in terms by no meanscomplimentary towards that poor lady: the younger woman not needing herprotection any longer, the elder abused her. Most of the family quarrelsthat I have seen in life (saving always those arising from moneydisputes, when a division of twopence halfpenny will often drive thedearest relatives into war and estrangement,) spring out of jealousyand envy. Jack and Tom, born of the same family and to the same fortune,live very cordially together, not until Jack is ruined when Tom desertshim, but until Tom makes a sudden rise in prosperity, which Jack can'tforgive. Ten times to one 'tis the unprosperous man that is angry, notthe other who is in fault. 'Tis Mrs. Jack, who can only afford a chair,that sickens at Mrs. Tom's new coach-and-sick, cries out against hersister's airs, and sets her husband against his brother. 'Tis Jack whosees his brother shaking hands with a lord (with whom Jack would liketo exchange snuff-boxes himself), that goes home and tells his wife howpoor Tom is spoiled, he fears, and no better than a sneak, parasite, andbeggar on horse back. I remember how furious the coffee-house wits werewith Dick Steele when he set up his coach and fine house in Bloomsbury:they began to forgive him when the bailiffs were after him, and abusedMr. Addison for selling Dick's country-house. And yet Dick in thesponging-house, or Dick in the Park, with his four mares and platedharness, was exactly the same gentle, kindly, improvident, jovial DickSteele: and yet Mr. Addison was perfectly right in getting the moneywhich was his, and not giving up the amount of his just claim, tobe spent by Dick upon champagne and fiddlers, laced clothes, finefurniture, and parasites, Jew and Christian, male and female, who clungto him. As, according to the famous maxim of Monsieur de Rochefoucault,"in our friends' misfortunes there's something secretly pleasant to us;"so, on the other hand, their good fortune is disagreeable. If 'tis hardfor a man to bear his own good luck, 'tis harder still for his friendsto bear it for him and but few of them ordinarily can stand that trial:whereas one of the "precious uses" of adversity is, that it is a greatreconciler; that it brings back averted kindness, disarms animosity, andcauses yesterday's enemy to fling his hatred aside, and hold out a handto the fallen friend of old days. There's pity and love, as well asenvy, in the same heart and towards the same person. The rivalry stopswhen the competitor tumbles; and, as I view it, we should look at theseagreeable and disagreeable qualities of our humanity humbly alike. Theyare consequent and natural, and our kindness and meanness both manly.

  So you may either read the sentence, that the elder of Esmond's twokinswomen pardoned the younger her beauty, when that had lost somewhatof its freshness, perhaps; and forgot most her grievances against theother, when the subject of them was no longer prosperous and enviable;or we may say more benevolently (but the sum comes to the same figures,worked either way,) that Isabella repented of her unkindness towardsRachel, when Rachel was unhappy; and, bestirring herself in behalf ofthe poor widow and her children, gave them shelter and friendship.The ladies were quite good friends as long as the weaker one needed aprotector. Before Esmond went away on his first campaign, his mistresswas still on terms of friendship (though a poor little chit, awoman that had evidently no spirit in her, &c.) with the elder LadyCastlewood; and Mistress Beatrix was allowed to be a beauty.

  But between the first year of Queen Anne's reign, and the second, sadchanges for the worse had taken place in the two younger ladies,at least in the elder's description of them. Rachel, ViscountessCastlewood, had no more face than a dumpling, and Mrs. Beatrix was grownquite coarse, and was losing all her beauty. Little Lord Blandford--(shenever would call him Lord Blandford; his father was Lord Churchill--theKing, whom he betrayed, had made him Lord Churchill, and he was LordChurchill still)--might be making eyes at her; but his mother, thatvixen of a Sarah Jennings, would never hear of such a folly. LadyMarlborough had got her to be a maid of honor at Court to the Princess,but she would repent of it. The widow Francis (she was but Mrs. FrancisEsmond) was a scheming, artful, heartless hussy. She was spoiling herbrat of a boy, and she would end by marrying her chaplain.

  "What, Tusher!" cried Mr. Esmond, feeling a strange pang of rage andastonishment.

  "Yes--Tusher, my maid's
son; and who has got all the qualities ofhis father the lackey in black, and his accomplished mamma thewaiting-woman," cries my lady. "What do you suppose that a sentimentalwidow, who will live down in that dingy dungeon of a Castlewood, whereshe spoils her boy, kills the poor with her drugs, has prayers twice aday and sees nobody but the chaplain--what do you suppose she can do,mon Cousin, but let the horrid parson, with his great square toes andhideous little green eyes, make love to her? Cela c'est vu, mon Cousin.When I was a girl at Castlewood, all the chaplains fell in love withme--they've nothing else to do."

  My lady went on with more talk of this kind, though, in truth, Esmondhad no idea of what she said further, so entirely did her first wordsoccupy his thought. Were they true? Not all, nor half, nor a tenth partof what the garrulous old woman said, was true. Could this be so? Noear had Esmond for anything else, though his patroness chatted on for anhour.

  Some young gentlemen of the town, with whom Esmond had madeacquaintance, had promised to present him to that most charming ofactresses, and lively and agreeable of women, Mrs. Bracegirdle, aboutwhom Harry's old adversary Mohun had drawn swords, a few years before mypoor lord and he fell out. The famous Mr. Congreve had stamped with hishigh approval, to the which there was no gainsaying, this delightfulperson: and she was acting in Dick Steele's comedies, and finally, andfor twenty-four hours after beholding her, Mr. Esmond felt himself, orthought himself, to be as violently enamored of this lovely brunette,as were a thousand other young fellows about the city. To have once seenher was to long to behold her again; and to be offered the delightfulprivilege of her acquaintance, was a pleasure the very idea of which setthe young lieutenant's heart on fire. A man cannot live with comradesunder the tents without finding out that he too is five-and-twenty. Ayoung fellow cannot be cast down by grief and misfortune ever so severebut some night he begins to sleep sound, and some day when dinner-timecomes to feel hungry for a beefsteak. Time, youth and good health, newscenes and the excitement of action and a campaign, had pretty wellbrought Esmond's mourning to an end; and his comrades said that DonDismal, as they called him, was Don Dismal no more. So when a party wasmade to dine at the "Rose," and go to the playhouse afterward, Esmondwas as pleased as another to take his share of the bottle and the play.

  How was it that the old aunt's news, or it might be scandal, aboutTom Tusher, caused such a strange and sudden excitement in Tom's oldplayfellow? Hadn't he sworn a thousand times in his own mind that theLady of Castlewood, who had treated him with such kindness once,and then had left him so cruelly, was, and was to remain henceforth,indifferent to him for ever? Had his pride and his sense of justice notlong since helped him to cure the pain of that desertion--was it even apain to him now? Why, but last night as he walked across the fieldsand meadows to Chelsey from Pall Mall, had he not composed two or threestanzas of a song, celebrating Bracegirdle's brown eyes, and declaringthem a thousand times more beautiful than the brightest blue ones thatever languished under the lashes of an insipid fair beauty! But TomTusher! Tom Tusher, the waiting-woman's son, raising up his little eyesto his mistress! Tom Tusher presuming to think of Castlewood's widow!Rage and contempt filled Mr. Harry's heart at the very notion; the honorof the family, of which he was the chief, made it his duty to preventso monstrous an alliance, and to chastise the upstart who could dareto think of such an insult to their house. 'Tis true Mr. Esmond oftenboasted of republican principles, and could remember many fine speecheshe had made at college and elsewhere, with WORTH and not BIRTH for atext: but Tom Tusher to take the place of the noble Castlewood--faugh!'twas as monstrous as King Hamlet's widow taking off her weeds forClaudius. Esmond laughed at all widows, all wives, all women; and werethe banns about to be published, as no doubt they were, that very nextSunday at Walcote Church, Esmond swore that he would be present to shoutNo! in the face of the congregation, and to take a private revenge uponthe ears of the bridegroom.

  Instead of going to dinner then at the "Rose" that night, Mr. Esmondbade his servant pack a portmanteau and get horses, and was at Farnham,half-way on the road to Walcote, thirty miles off, before his comradeshad got to their supper after the play. He bade his man give no hint tomy Lady Dowager's household of the expedition on which he was going;and as Chelsey was distant from London, the roads bad, and infestedby footpads, and Esmond often in the habit, when engaged in a party ofpleasure, of lying at a friend's lodging in town, there was no need thathis old aunt should be disturbed at his absence--indeed, nothing moredelighted the old lady than to fancy that mon cousin, the incorrigibleyoung sinner, was abroad boxing the watch, or scouring St. Giles's. Whenshe was not at her books of devotion, she thought Etheridge and Sedleyvery good reading. She had a hundred pretty stories about Rochester,Harry Jermyn, and Hamilton; and if Esmond would but have run away withthe wife even of a citizen, 'tis my belief she would have pawned herdiamonds (the best of them went to our Lady of Chaillot) to pay hisdamages.

  My lord's little house of Walcote--which he inhabited before he tookhis title and occupied the house of Castlewood--lies about a mile fromWinchester, and his widow had returned to Walcote after my lord's deathas a place always dear to her, and where her earliest and happiest dayshad been spent, cheerfuller than Castlewood, which was too large for herstraitened means, and giving her, too, the protection of the ex-dean,her father. The young Viscount had a year's schooling at the famouscollege there, with Mr. Tusher as his governor. So much news of them Mr.Esmond had had during the past year from the old Viscountess, his ownfather's widow; from the young one there had never been a word.

  Twice or thrice in his benefactor's lifetime, Esmond had been toWalcote; and now, taking but a couple of hours' rest only at the inn onthe road, he was up again long before daybreak, and made such good speedthat he was at Walcote by two o'clock of the day. He rid to the end ofthe village, where he alighted and sent a man thence to Mr. Tusher, witha message that a gentleman from London would speak with him on urgentbusiness. The messenger came back to say the Doctor was in town, mostlikely at prayers in the Cathedral. My Lady Viscountess was there, too;she always went to Cathedral prayers every day.

  The horses belonged to the post-house at Winchester. Esmond mountedagain and rode on to the "George;" whence he walked, leaving hisgrumbling domestic at last happy with a dinner, straight to theCathedral. The organ was playing: the winter's day was already growinggray: as he passed under the street-arch into the Cathedral yard, andmade his way into the ancient solemn edifice.