THE HISTORY 20 HENRY ESMOND, Esq., COLONEL IN THE SERVICE OF HER MAJESTY QUEEN ANNE WRITTEN BY HIMSELF. BY W. M. THACKERAY. NEW YORK: HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, 329 & 331 PEARL STREET, FRANKLIN SQUARE MDCCCLII. TO THE RIGHT HONORABLE WILLIAM BINGHAM, LORD ASHBURTON. MY DEAR LORD, The writer of a book which copies the manners and language of Queen Anne's time, must not omit the Dedication to the Patron; and I ask leave to inscribe these volumes to your Lordship for the sake of the great kindness and friendship which I owe to you and yours. My volumes will reach you when the Author is on his voyage to a country where your name is as well known as here. Wherever I am, I shall gratefully regard you; and shall not be the less welcomed in America because I am LONDON, October 18, 1852. Your obliged friend and servant, W. M. THACKERAY. PREFACE. THE ESMONDS OF VIRGINIA. THE estate of Castlewood, in Virginia, which was given to our ancestors by King Charles the First, as some return for the sacrifices made in His Majesty's cause by the Esmond family, lies in Westmoreland county, between the rivers Potomac and Rappahannoc, and was once as great as an English Principality, though in the early times its revenues were but small. Indeed for near eighty years after our forefathers possessed them, our plantations were in the hands of factors, who enriched themselves one after another, though a few scores of hogsheads of tobacco were all the produce, that for long after the Restoration, our family received from their Virginian estates. My dear and honored father, Colonel Henry Esmond, whose history, written by himself, is contained in the accompanying volume, came to Virginia in the year 1718, built his house of Castlewood, and here permanently settled. After a long stormy life in England, he passed the remainder of his many days in peace and honor in this country. How beloved and respected by all his fellow-citizens, how inexpressibly dear to his family, I need not say. His whole life was a benefit to all who were connected with him. He gave the best example, the best advice, the most bounteous hospitality to his friends; the tenderest care to his dependents; and bestowed on those of his immediate family such a blessing of fatherly love and protection, as can never be thought of, by us at least, without veneration and thankfulness; and my son's children, whether established here in our Republic or at home in the always beloved mother country, from which our late quarrel hath separated us, |