should join with them in acknowledgments. If I stay much longer with the regiment, I shall be perfectly corrupt; the officers are loose and profligate, and soldiers are very devils.

Wolfe's picture of the state of military morals would appear over-coloured if we had not, in the periodicals of the time, numerous instances of the vice and ignorance which then prevailed in the army amongst officers as well as soldiers. The subject, however, is too repulsive to be dwelt upon. The expected review did not take place, owing to the Duke's illness; nor was the Lieutenant-Colonel ill-pleased at being spared the exhibition. Writing from Reading on the 4th November, he says they were at exercise for four or five hours every day, and adds "The men of these times have not iron enough in their constitutions for this work. Our ancestors would have done twice as much in colder weather without coughing; but our debaucheries enervate and unman us." Shortly afterwards they marched into Kent, in which county they were stationed for the winter,Wolfe, with six companies in the castle of Dover, and the remainder at Maidstone.

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CHAPTER XIII.

DOVER.-EXETER.

NOVEMBER, 1753—MARCH, 1755.

THE Castle of Dover, like the Tower of London, is said to have been founded by Julius Cæsar. "In memory of whom," says Lambarde, "they of the castle keep till this day certain vessels of old wine and salt, which they affirm to be the remains of such provisions as he brought into it. As touching the which, if they be natural, and not sophisticate, I suppose them more likely to have been of that store which Hubert de Burgh laid in there." The old topographer did not believe that the fortress originated with Cæsar, and thought that report more credible which ascribed the foundation to the British King Arviragus, who married the daughter of the Emperor Claudius. "But whosoever," he says, 66 were the author of the castle, Matthew Paris writeth, that it was accounted in his time (which was under the reign of King Henry III.) Clavis et Repagulum totius Regni,the very lock and key of the whole realm of England.” * Several alterations were made in the fortifications from

*A Perambulation of Kent, etc., written in the year 1570, by William Lambarde, of Lincoln's Inn, Gent.'

time to time, and different sovereigns added apartments to the castle until the breaking out of the Civil War, after which period the buildings were suffered to moulder into ruin; and although barracks were erected in 1745, to accommodate a regiment of infantry, they had not been kept in repair,* so that in 1753, when the castle became the head-quarters of Lord Bury's regiment, it was scarcely habitable.

Wolfe, on his way from Reading, stopped for a day or two at Blackheath, and after arriving at his destination, wrote to his mother as follows:

Dear Madam,

Dover Castle, 19th November, 1753.

As soon as ever I could get my green cloth spread upon the barrack table, and pen, ink, and paper out of my baggage, I sit down to write to you, to inform you that the remainder of our march was as fortunate in point of weather as the former part had been; and here our labours end, I can't say comfortably or warmly, but in a soldier-like starving condition. The winds rattle pretty loud, and the air is sharp, but I suppose healthy, for it causes great keenness of appetite. I lodge at the foot of a tower supposed to be built by the Romans, and cannot help wishing sometimes that they had chosen a snugger situation to erect their fortress upon; or that the moderns, who demolished a good part of the works of antiquity, had been so kind to us, their military posterity, as not to leave one stone upon another.

The strength of our fortification is removed by discord and by time; but caissons are raised upon the ruins as prisons, and a proper mode of punishment for those wild imaginations that prefer the empty sound of drum and trumpet to sober knock of hammer in shop mechanic. Here's a ready deliverance down the perpendicular cliff to such as are tired of their existence. They need not run very far to get out of * Beauties of England and Wales.' (Kent.)

this world; one bold step frees them from thought. I'm afraid I shall lose my interest at Court by this distant recluse life, and shall never be notticed (as the Scotch say) but to be reprimanded for some dispute with a cobbler who has a vote in such a dirty borough as Dover. Sincerely, I beg you'll make my best compliments to the General, and desire him to convince the King and Duke that he is not displeased with them, for otherwise I shall be involved with him in the resentment that must follow this seeming contempt of majesty and dignity.

On the 6th of December the Lieutenant-Colonel informs his father that he seldom stirred outside the gates of the castle, was stupefied with smoke and sulphur, and goes on to say :

·

The best and most agreeable service that you can possibly do me (since you are so good to offer your service) is to amuse and divert yourself with such change and variety as the neighbourhood of London, or inconsiderable distance from Bath, or other places of public resort, put within your reach. I know by myself how necessary it is to refresh the mind with new objects to prevent its sinking, and how very useful a fresh collection of thoughts are in supporting the spirits. Let me alone six or seven days in my room, and I lose all sort of sensation, either of pain or pleasure, and am in species little better than an oyster.

A missive from the haunted castle, on Christmas Eve, will interest the antiquarian as well as the cursory reader: :

Dear Madam,

I find our afternoons hang so heavy that expedients are wanted to divert the time. Our conversation from dinner till five o'clock is kept up with some difficulty, as none of us have any correspondence with the capital, nor communication

with coffee houses or public papers, so that we are entirely in the dark as to exterior things. From five till eight is a tedious interval hardly to be worked through. I have inquired for good green tea in Dover, as an aid, and can find none; it will be some relief and an act of charity if you will send me a pound of the best. I put off my demand until I knew your rents were due, although I should rather wish you could persuade the General to pay for it, as I take his purse to be in better order than either yours or mine.

This castle is haunted with the spirits of some of our restless forefathers, the old Saxons, and some of their wives, for here are ghosts of both sexes. Whether these shadowy beings are restless, or our consciences weak and our imaginations strong, you may easily conjecture. But here are people that believe there are spirits to be seen, and others that are ready to swear to the sight; or, in other words, there are minds unable to bear the darkness of the night without trembling. We know that Christmas is at hand, by the sutlers' mince-pies. I hope you have all the gaiety and good-fellowship that these times generally produce, to enliven the otherwise cold and dreary season.

The sprightly tone of our Lieutenant-Colonel's letters from Dover indicates a considerable improvement in his health and spirits. The milder climate of his native county seems, notwithstanding the discomforts of the ruinous fortress, to have acted like a charm in restoring his natural good-humour. His duties, too, were now much less burdensome and vexatious than they had been in the north. He was no longer subjected to those

* Green tea was not used in England until the year 1715. Its price about 1753 was from 15s. to 30s. per pound, and that of black tea from 13s. to 20s. The first duty imposed was eightpence per gallon upon made tea; but the leaf was first taxed in 1689, at the rate of 5s. per pound and five per cent. on the value. In 1745 the duty was altered to 1s. per pound and twenty-five per cent. on the value.