SOME UNPUBLISHED LETTERS OF IN a rambling Tudor house on the hem of a quiet Kentish village, finding delight in horses, dogs, and muskets, as well as in Cæsar and Livy, James Wolfe dreamt of military renown from his tenderest years. Two months he lacked of his fifteenth birthday when, a lank, red-haired stripling, a first commission was placed in his hands. The parchment with the faded signature of 'George R.' and 'Harrington' is before me as I write, setting forth that Colonel Edward Wolfe's eldest son is thereby appointed second-lieutenant in the aforesaid Colonel's 'Marine Regiment of Foot.' Its date is the 3rd of November 1741. Nineteen years passed away; on the selfsame spot in the grounds of Squerryes Court, where the boy's trembling fingers grasped the scroll, his dearest friends posed a cenotaph, to record for all time to come the beginning of that career of arms whose celebrity had by 1760 extended over the civilised world. Here first was Wolfe with martial ardour fired, Here first with Glory's brightest flame inspired; A proud alliance with its hero's name. In May 1742, the young soldier (having meanwhile, owing to his father's absence in the West Indies, got himself transferred as ensign in Colonel Duroure's regiment of foot) landed in Flanders. Thereafter, with his campaigns, began also that series of letters to his parents and friends at home, which lasted until the very eve of his death on the Heights of Quebec, and now find a fitting lodgment at Squerryes Court, Westerham. The ancient estate of Squerryes had been acquired by John Warde from the Earl of Jersey in 1721. The younger Warde children were contemporaries of the two Wolfe lads at Spiers (now Quebec House). With George Warde vows of eternal friendship were exchanged by James; both attended the same school; both entered the Army, both duly rose to high rank. The hero's mother made this George Warde executor of her will and bequeathed to him, amongst other things, including various military commissions, all her son's letters some 250 in number, which during long years she had carefully treasured. So much for the manner in which these letters came to Squerryes, now the seat of Lieut.-Colonel C. A. Madan Warde, J.P., Lord of the Manor. They have in the past century and a half had their vicissitudes. The poet Southey meditating a Life of Wolfe (which never got itself written) borrowed them. The intermediary in the negotiations, having received the papers back from the Laureate, died; his effects were dispersed, and not until thirty years afterwards did the late Admiral Warde, K.H., hear that they were actually being offered for public sale at Yarmouth amongst other effects of the antiquary Dawson Turner. Upon the Admiral's remonstrance, the priceless letters were restored by the executors to the lord of Squerryes. Robert Wright incorporated many of them in his biography published half a century ago; but nearly every one amply repays perusal, and the least of them sheds some light on the impulsive and yet wholly amiable character of one of the greatest soldiers England ever produced. Of the extracts (hitherto unpublished) which follow from Wolfe's correspondence with his parents, the first dates from February 1747, when he was in camp near Maestricht. He was a hardened veteran of twenty, having seen five years' service, and as many severe campaigns. His rank is that of Brigade Major, his activity and thoroughness in that capacity being so notable as to attract the attention of the Commander-in-Chief, the Duke of Cumberland. It is a curious epistle, or rather a verbose apology for not writing one. He scorns to shine as a letter-writer; our youthful Brigade Major leaves such distinction as that to mere amateurs in the absorbing art of war: DEAR SIR,-We military men don't accustom ourselves to moral topics, or seldom entertain one another with subjects which are out of the common rôle, from the frequent occasion we have to mention our own affairs, which, in time of war, are of no small extent and concern. Possibly our manner of writing may proceed in some measure from diffidence and modesty, as not caring to attempt things that we are sensible have been better touched upon; and rather choose to be confined to that particular branch of knowledge with which we are supposed to be well acquainted. Nine-tenths of the letters from hence, I am persuaded, are filled with observations of what occurs in the army in general, or in the particular battalion to which the writer belongs. I know, or at least guess by myself, how much every man's attention is taken up with the things about him, and the use of thinking constantly on the same matter weighs greatly with the mind, and in time becomes its first principle. So that setting aside a man's modesty and his diffidence, he has little else to talk of. I am led into this observation by a discourse at Gen. Howard's an hour ago, of the difficulty some people there said they were under for want of sufficient variety of occurrences to fill up their paper; and so put off testifying their love to their friends till next post. Now, I was secure, nay certain, that you could expect nothing very extraordinary or amusing in the way we are in, and that your good nature and friendship would have been satisfied to have known your son VOL. LXIV-No. 379 EE in health, and to have had a mark of his respect and affection for his parents expressed in ever so few lines. I heartily wish you health, and am, dear Sir, your most obedient and affectionate son, P.S.-My love to my mother. J. WOLFE. It is worth remarking that James Wolfe, as the son of a successful soldier, was under no delusions as to the value of mere merit in the military régime of that day. 'If I rise at all,' he observes in one letter, it will probably be by means of my father's pocket.' Consequently, we need not be surprised to find the parents of the precocious hero for ever wire-pulling at headquarters, besides planning matrimonial alliances which would enable him to command the means of promotion. If in his letters we note him repeatedly deploring the system (to which he was to owe as little as any man), he declares himself convinced that none but earthly gods and goddesses are moved far without the precious bane.' He has a restless temperament; his moods change; he is soon over the 'we military men' phase. He gossips gaily with his mother about his camp duties, his professional prospects, his health (this, by the by, was always precarious), and the affairs, especially the love affairs, of his friends. Mrs. Wolfe had written to say that one of his old Greenwich comrades had fallen in love with a damsel whose beauty he insisted upon. James professes in his reply to be astonished. unbends so far as to be exceedingly facetious. He Sure, Palliser can't in honesty be partial to that red head of hers, and think there is beauty in the motley of white and yellow! He has certainly meant his speech in compliment to some female, of the fairer kind. He can never be so blind as to imagine any perfection but in the just medium between dismal black and pallid white. He has sacrificed his own opinion of Miss Higsham's affections in pure civility to the neighbourhood of that same lady who was, as I have said before, undoubtedly the object of and first in his thoughts. She has much As for himself, he professes to have made many conquests before he met Miss Elizabeth Lawson, daughter of the Sir Wilfrid Lawson of that day, and a maid-of-honour at Court. His own description of the lady is, 'I don't think her a beauty. sweetness of temper, sense enough, and is very civil and engaging in her behaviour. In point of fortune she has no more than I have a right to expect, viz. 12,000l. . . . The maid is tall and thin, about my own age, and that's the only objection.' On his return from the Continent early in 1749, he quickly discovered that his parents were hotly opposed to the Lawson match. They have their eye,' he wrote his friend Rickson, upon one of 30,000l.' 6 As the year wore on the young Major became stationed at Glasgow with his regiment, then commanded by Lord George Sackville, afterwards the Lord George Germain of the American War of Independence, and of whom Wolfe, by the by, conceived a high opinion. His letters show him to be very miserable. He was head over ears in love with Miss Lawson, notwithstanding that Mrs. Wolfe even alleged rumours against that young lady's fair fame in her desire to break off the connexion. James repels these insinuations with scorn, even when they are backed up by two of his father's friends and a young kinswoman, who acted as his mother's companion, and whom he designates as 'Jezebel.' Neither my inclination nor interest leads me [he writes from Glasgow, the 25th of March 1749] to do anything that may disoblige either my father or you, much less against both can I be persuaded to oppose your wills; it would humble me indeed if you were once to suppose that I could be biassed in my opinion by either of the gentlemen you mention, though they should receive advice and assistance from the artificial and fraudulent female; or that she (prepared as I am against all her attempts) should be able to work upon me with lies and falsehood, her constant weapons. I had not five minutes discourse with her, but in company with the others, where her intimacy is not yet strong enough to allow the freedom of utterance upon all subjects; so that, what she might be wanting in truth must have been chiefly upon indifferent topics, more proper to move one's contempt than displeasure. One melancholy proof of her pernicious example, I foresee, will appear in that child Miss Sotheron [his cousin]; if Jezebel be suffered to meddle in her education, the girl is undone. I pressed the father to send her to New York. His fondness, and Fanny's wickedness, will be her distraction, if she is not quickly removed. It is a pity the poor thing should be neglected, for she appears ready enough on her part to do what is right. Lodged in the suburb of Camlachie, there being no Glasgow barracks in those days, Wolfe began to feel the effects of seven campaigns on a naturally delicate frame. He became almost prostrated. DEAR MADAM [he writes the 21st of May 1749],-This is the most lazy and indolent disorder I have ever been oppressed with; 'tis pain to undertake the slightest business; and what used to give me pleasure in the work is now tedious and disagreeable. I should hardly imagine it, if I did not really feel it myself, yet the very writing a few words, though to the person I always loved to write to, is now a trouble to me. I must drive off this heaviness by some means or other, and not be thus uneasy to myself, when everything about me looks gay and pleasant. The sergeant brought me the little bundles, just as you had given them into his hands; they came very seasonably and I thank you much for the relief. Mr. Godde, too, has furnished me with what his shop affords ; I can't say they come at so easy a rate as some other things, but whoever deals with him I find must pay well to be well served. We expected a great tumult, and some mischief in a day or two, at the punishment of two men concerned in the mob; but they have prevented all that by escaping out of prison. It has saved me a great deal of trouble, though it would have been for the future peace of the place if these offenders had received what the law intended them. I'm afraid the magistrates will suffer in the opinion of their superiors; though I can't say it appears that they connived at the prisoners' flight; yet their fears of their being rescued and their timorous behaviour throughout the whole of this affair will not fail to create suspicions to their prejudice. Present my duty to my father. I am, dear Madam, your most obedient and affectionate son, J. WOLFE. The latter part of the above letter refers to a riot in Glasgow occasioned by a corpse having been resurrected by a party of young collegians. Thinking the body had been taken to the college, a mob collected, smashing windows and perpetrating other violence. A number of the rioters were arrested. Two were found guilty and sentenced to be whipped through the town and banished for life. From Glasgow Wolfe undertook a journey to Perth in the course of that summer. The weather had been miserable, cold and wet, and our Major's health was not improved thereby. If I say I'm thinner, you'll imagine me a shadow or a skeleton in motion.' From Perth I find him writing Mrs. Wolfe: You know what a whimsical sort of person I am, and how variable and unsteady. Nothing pleases me now but the rougher kind of entertainments, such as hunting, shooting and fishing. There's none of that kind near London, and so I have distant notions of taking a little, very little house, remote upon the edge of the forest or waste, merely for sport, and keep it till we go to Minorca. The idea of a sporting lodge in the Highlands, so strikingly novel in 1749, has since become a familiar one to the natives of these islands. The elder Wolfe, now a Major-General, frequently supplemented his son's slender pay by a handsome remittance. It is a pity we know so little of his character and personal traits other than those we can infer from his son's correspondence. Captain George Wolfe, a Jacobite, fled from Limerick in 1651. His grandson first saw the light in 1685, and sixteen years later entered Queen Anne's service as second-lieutenant of marines. His first commission, dated the 10th of March 1702, is now with the others at Squerryes Court. The fact of his rapid rise-without fortune or family influence (he became lieutenant-colonel in 1717)-evinces rare merit, and he was regarded with favour by Marlborough. Major-General Wolfe was now in his sixty-fifth year, and while devoted to his one surviving son, was not blind to what he considered his faults. The letters of both parents must have been filled perpetually with advice or remonstrance, and fortunately the son's filial piety was such that he always deferred to them both-sometimes with an excellent grace—at a later period under passionate protest. I have [he writes from Glasgow the 10th of July 1749] but one way of making you any acknowledgements and that is by endeavouring to deserve your esteem. A number of words and sentences ever so well put together cannot equal a good action. Those are only to be paid in their kind; and though I should take the greatest pains to tell you how much I think myself obliged to you, you would be better pleased to hear that I did my share of duty as it should be done ; and that every kindness I received from you was felt by the honest and the good; that every addition of circumstance was employed as you yourself would wish, and that the same principles and integrity that have hitherto guided your actions are, through you, the rule of mine. All this would be pleasing to hear, and you have taken one more step to bring it about; 'tis now in my power to be both generous |