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"You are

upon his rear in the retreat over the mountains." right," said Wolfe, "I had it there, but our friends are astonished at what I have shewn them, because they have read nothing." *

We have here the explanation of Wolfe's professional knowledge. It was unceasingly sought after by him wherever he thought that it could be obtained. Even in his seventeenth year he acted as adjutant to his regiment, in which capacity he was present at Dettingen. At the close of the campaign he returned to England, when he was appointed captain in Barrell's, the 4th regiment. He was not at Fontenoy. In 1745 his regiment was a part of the force of marshal Wade sent to oppose the pretender. He was at Falkirk and at Culloden, under the duke of Cumberland, and he has left an account of the battle. The rebellion having been subdued, he remained in the highlands, and he is believed to have remained in command of the fort between lochs Lomond and Katrine. Wolfe was again in service on the continent in January, 1747, and was present at Lauffeld on the 2nd of June. He returned to London in the winter of 1747-8, going back to the continent in March, 1748. In January, 1749, he was appointed major in lord George Sackville's regiment, the 20th.

At this date occurred his affaire de cœur with Elizabeth, eldest daughter of sir Wilfrid Lawson, maid of honour to the princess of Wales. Wolfe was thrown much into her society during the winter he was in London. She was well connected, being the niece of lord Peterborough. It was not her position at the court which attracted Wolfe, for he described it "as a genteeler way to wickedness," which, with Miss Chudleigh in his mind, it was not difficult to believe. While personally he was much attached to Miss Lawson, his parents were opposed to the match, an objection based on the lady's want of fortune. If Wolfe ever made a serious proposal it was rejected; he himself speaks of his "last disappointment in love," and he was angry with his mother when she wrote that

Anabasis, Book IV., 1-2.

Miss Lawson's ill-health prevented her marrying. “My amour," he wrote five years later, "has not been without its use. It has defended me against other women, introduced a great deal of philosophy and tranquility as to all objects of our strongest affections, and something softened the disposition to severity and rigour that I had contracted in the camp, trained up as from my infancy to the conclusion of the peace in war and tumult." A few years after the affair his old feelings were awakened by seeing Miss Lawson's picture in the house of general Mordaunt. It may be well to remark that Miss Lawson died in March, 1759, in less than a month after the departure of Wolfe for the St. Lawrence.

In 1749, owing to the departure of the lieutenant-colonel, Cornwallis, to assume the duties of the government of Nova Scotia, Wolfe was placed in command of the regiment. It was the commencement of the reputation he subsequently attained. Wolfe's attention was directed to every minor detail of the interior economy of the regiment. His effort was not simply given to the smart appearance of men on parade, and that they should execute their movements in the field with steadiness and regularity; Wolfe was among the first to shew his care aud consideration for the soldier in the ranks, and to elevate him in his own self-respect. The high degree of excellence to which he brought the regiment, became widely known, and men of rank and position on joining the service applied to obtain their commissions in the 20th. Among such as these was the duke of Richmond and the marquis of Blandford. When the battle of Minden was fought, on the 1st of August, 1759, Wolfe was in command of the expedition against Quebec, but the gallantry and good service of the regiment, on that day, were fully recognized as the consequence of his discipline and training.

The age was one of reckless dissipation and idleness. In the hour of danger the officers shewed courage and fortitude; but there was a total disregard of the study of their profession. There was, indeed, little encouragement to the military student, for promotion was the consequence of political influence and

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powerful family connections. Wolfe's letters are full of allusions to this condition. In his own command he exacted constant attention to duty, and one of his orders sets forth that the subalterns cannot think they do too much. In 1750 he was appointed lieutenant-colonel of the 20th. Two years later he was at Paris, the bearer of letters from lord Bury to his father, the British ambassador, the earl of Albemarle. He thus obtained the passport into the best society, French and English. For the six months he was at Paris he was a diligent student of the language, so that he spoke it fluently and elegantly. He was desirous of professionally visiting the continental camps; but his application for leave for the purpose was refused, so he returned to England. Towards the end of 1753 the 20th was quartered at Dover. The regiment remained in the south and west of England until the commencement of the war in 1756. In the following year he accepted the position of quartermaster-general for Ireland, on condition that he received the rank of colonel. On a younger lieutenant-colonel being promoted over his head, he resigned the appointment. On his return from the expedition to Rochefort, Wolfe was promoted to the rank of colonel. In a letter to his father he speaks of his obligations to sir Edward Hawke, who influenced lord Anson to submit his name to the king. Lord Ligonier was then commander-in-chief, owing to the resignation of the duke of Cumberland. Wolfe, being in doubt as to his future conduct, addressed lord Ligonier on the subject of his proceeding to Ireland. In this dilemma he received the appointment as brigadier in the North American expedition. The selection was the act of Pitt, dictated by the desire to appoint competent men. His position, however, conferred on him only the local rank of brigadier in America: at the siege of Louisbourg, Wolfe's substantive army rank was only that of colonel.

There is a story told of Wolfe, which has been accepted on utterly insufficient evidence, to which I feel called upon to allude. It is related that Pitt invited him to dinner previously to his departure for Quebec, generally to discuss the chances

of the campaign, the only other guest present being lord Temple. It is on lord Temple's authority that the story is told. It never publicly appeared until published in lord Mahon's history, in 1844, eighty-six years after the event, with the consent and on the authority of Mr. Thomas Grenville, who had heard the story from lord Temple.* In making the statement Mr. Grenville was careful to add that, according to Temple, Wolfe “had partaken sparingly of wine," but that he indulged in the greatest extravagance of manner and conduct, drawing his sword in the dining room, and declaring what he would effect with it.

It may be asked, on what ground this plain narrative can be disputed? I reply, its total want of corroboration, the character of the first narrator, and the whole life and career of Wolfe himself. Lord Temple speaks of Wolfe being heated by the "unwonted society of statesmen." Such a supposition is ridiculously inadmissible. Pitt himself was no higher in the social class than Wolfe; he had commenced life as a cornet in the "Blues," and by his own genius and political career had attained distinction. There was surely nothing overpowering, either in the birth, rank, ability or character of lord Temple. Wolfe had been on terms of intimacy with

"After Wolfe's appointment, and on the day preceding his embarkation for America, Pitt, desirous of giving his last verbal instructions, invited him to dinner, lord Temple being the only other guest. As the evening advanced, Wolfe, heated, perhaps, by his own aspiring thoughts and the unwonted society of statesmen, broke forth into a strain of gasconade and bravado. He drew his sword, he rapped the table with it, he flourished it round the room, he talked of the mighty things which that sword was to achieve. The two ministers sat aghast at an exhibition so unusual from any man of real sense and real spirit. And when at last Wolfe had taken his leave, and his carriage was heard to roll from the door, Pitt seemed for the moment shaken in the high opinion which his deliberate judgment had formed of Wolfe; he lifted up his eyes and arms, and exclaimed to lord Temple: "Good God! that I should have entrusted the fate of the country and of the administration to such hands." This story was told by lord Temple himself to a near and still surviving relative, one of my best and most valued friends." [Mahon's History of England, IV., p. 152.]

+ Horace Walpole makes the following allusion to lord Temple, III., p. 391, 16th Nov., 1759. Letter to sir Horace Mann. "If Lord Temple hoped to involve Mr. Pitt in his quarrel, it was very wicked at such a crisis as this—and if he

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the first men in England. He had associated in the best society. The duke of Richmond and the marquis of Blandford had sought commissions in his regiment. He had mixed with the highest French nobility in Paris. Lord Bury was his intimate friend. If there was one man with family pride, it was lord George Sackville. Wolfe wrote to him with the same freedom as to his intimate friend Rickson.

It was owing to the marriage of Pitt with the sister of lord Temple, the head of the Grenville family, that Temple possessed influence. Neither his character nor his talents commanded respect; he was wealthy, ambitious, unscrupulous in his attempts to obtain position, untiring in his energy to injure an opponent, and with an exaggerated idea of his personal importance, and of the dignity of the earldom his family had lately obtained. We have many glimpses of his character in the history of that time, when his name appears, mostly in connection with that of Pitt. We read of his blundering impertinence to George II., when he told the king that his own conduct at Malplaquet had placed him in a position similar to that of Byng. His pertinacious application for the vacant garter was the cause of Pitt's letter to Newcastle, which every admirer of Pitt's career must desire had remained unwritten. We read of Temple's intrigues 'with Wilkes, in the view of increasing his own political weight, carried to such an extent that he was dismissed from the lord-lieutenancy of Buckinghamshire and his name erased from the list of privy councillors. In the complications which arose relative to the regency bill, Temple's conduct was marked by much want of scruple. George III. had determined to make a change in the ministry, from the dissatisfaction felt by him owing to the exclusion of his mother's name from the regency bill. With the desire of forming a ministry controlled by Pitt, his brother George, and himself, Temple persuaded Pitt not to take office could I am apt to believe he would--if he could not it was very silly. To the Garter nobody can have slenderer pretensions; his family is scarce older than his earldom, which is of the youngest. His person is ridiculously awkward; and if chivalry were in vogue, he has given proofs of having no passion for tilt and tournament."