MILITARY PREPARATIONS. 345 CHAPTER XII. Military preparations-Major commandant-Drills-Presented with a sword— The volunteer system-His family-Lines to the Princess Amelia-Conclusion. WHEN the consequences resulting from the French revolution had involved us in a war, our country called upon its patriotic volunteers to turn out and assemble in its defence. I was still resident at Tunbridge Wells, and, though not proprietor of a single foot of land in the county of Kent, yet I found myself in the hearts of my affectionate friends and fellow subjects; they immediately volunteered to mount and form themselves under my command as a troop of yeomen cavalry; I was diffident of my fitness to head them in that capacity, and, declining their kind offer, recommended to them a neighboring gentleman, who had served in the line, and held the rank of field officer upon half pay. Men of their principles and spirit could not fail to be respectable, and they are now serving with credit to their captain and themselves under the command of the Lord Viscount Boyne, who resides at Tunbridge Wells, and together with the duties attendant on his commission, as commander of this respectable corps, executes the office of a magistrate for the county, not less amiable and honorable in his private character, than useful and patriotic in his public one. Some time after this, when certain leading gentlemen of the county began to make their tenders to government for raising corps of volunteer infantry, I no longer hesitated to obey the wishes of the loyal and spirited young men, who offered to enrol themselves under my command, and finding them amount upon the muster to two full companies, properly officered, I reported them to our excellent Lord Lieutenant of the county, the Earl of Romney, and received his Majesty's commission to command them with the rank of Major Commandant. I had instant proof that the zeal they had shown in turning out in their king and country's cause did not evaporate in mere professions, for to their assiduity and aptitude, to their exemplary and correct observance of discipline, and strict obedience to their officers, the warmest testimony that I could give would only do them justice. It was winter when we first enrolled, and every evening after striking work, till ten o'clock at night, we were incessantly at the drill, and after we had been practised in the manual, sometimes turning out for the march by moonlight, sometimes by torch-light. I had not a private that was not in the vigor of his youth; their natural carriage was erect and soldier-like, they fell readily into the attitude and step of a soldier on the march, for they were all artisans, mechanics, or manufacturers of Tunbridge ware, and I had not one who did the work of a mere laboring peasant amongst them, whilst every officer submitted to the rule I laid down, and did the duty and learned the exercise of a private in the line before he stood out and took command in his proper post. Our service being limited to the district of the counties of Kent, Sussex, and Surry, no sooner were my companions fit for duty, than, at their unanimous desire, I reported them to the Secretary of State as ready and willing to serve in any part of England, and this their loyal tender being laid before the King, His Majesty was graciously pleased to signify to us his royal approbation of our zeal through his Secretary of State. When the volunteer infantry were dismissed at the peace of Amiens, my men requested leave to hold their arms and serve without pay. At the same time they were pleased to honor me with the present of a sword by the hands of their serjeant-major, to the purchase of which every private had contributed, and which they rendered infinitely dear and valuable to me by engraving on the hilt of it-That it was a tribute of their esteem for their beloved commander." The renewal of hostilities has again put them under my command, and I trust the warmth and sincerity of my unalterable attachment to them has now no need of appealing to professions. We know each other too well, and I am persuaded that there is not one amongst them, but will give me credit for the truth when I declare, that as a father loves his children, so do I love them. We have now augmented our strength to four companies, and from the experience I have repeatedly had of their conduct, when upon permanent duty, I am convinced, that if ever the necessity shall occur for calling them out upon actual service, they will be found steady in the hour of trial, and perfectly resolved never to disgrace the character of Men of Kent, or tarnish that proud trophy, which they inscribe upon their colors. I humbly conceive that if we take into our consideration the prodigious magnitude and extent of the volunteer system, we shall find it has been productive of more real use, and less incidental embarrassment to government, than could have been expected. MY FAMILY. 347 We must make allowances for those who have been accustomed to look for the strength and resources of the nation only in its disposable force, if they are apt to undervalue the importance of its domestic army. But after the proofs, which the capital and country have given of the spirit, discipline, and good order of their volunteers, both cavalry and infantry, it is not wise or politic, or liberal to disparage them as some have attempted to do; there are indeed but few who have so done; the wonder is that there are any; but that a man should be so fond of his own dull jest as to risk it upon one, who has too much wit of his own not to spy out the want of it in others, is perfectly ridiculous; and I am persuaded, that a man of Colonel Birch's acknowledged merit as an officer, and established character for every good quality that denotes and marks the gentleman, would infinitely rather be the object of such a pointless sarcasm, than the author of it. of The man who lives to see many days, must look to encounter many sorrows. My eldest son, who had married the eldest daughter of the late Earl of Buckinghamshire, and sister of the present, died in Tobago, where he went to qualify for a civil employment in that island; and, some time after, death bereft me my wife. Their virtues cannot need the ornament of dẹscription, and it has ever been my study to resign myself to the dispensations of Providence with all the fortitude I can summon, convinced that patience is no mark of insensibility, nor the parade of lamentation any evidence of the sincerity or permanency of grief. My two surviving sons are happily and respectably married, and have families; I have the care, under chancery, of five children, relicts of the late William Badcock, Esquire, who married my second daughter, and died in my house at Tunbridge Wells, and I have the happiness to number nineteen grandchildren, some of whom have already lived to crown my warmest wishes, and I see a promise in the rest, that flatters my most sanguine hopes. These are comforts that still adhere to me, and whilst I have the kindness of my children, the attachment of my friends, and the candor of the public to look up to, I have ample cause to be thankful and contented. . Charles, the elder of my surviving sons, married the daughter of General Mathew, a truly noble and benevolent gentleman, loved and honored by all who know him, and who will be ever gratefully remembered by the island he has governed, and the army he has commanded. William, the youngest, married Eliza, daughter of Mrs. Burt, and, when commanding His Majesty's ship the La Pique, in the West Indies, being seized with the fever of the country at Saint Domingo, was sent home, as the only chance of saving him, and constrained to forfeit the command of that very capital frigate. When the young and amiable Princess Amelia was residing at Worthing for the benefit of the sea and air, my son, then commander of the Fly sloop of war, kept guard upon that station, prepared to accommodate her Royal Highness with his boats or vessels in any excursions on the water, which she might be advised to take. I came to Worthing, whilst he was there upon duty, and was permitted to pay my homage to the Princess. It was impossible to contemplate youth and beauty suffering tortures with such exemplary patience, and not experience those sensations of respect and pity, which such a contemplation naturally must inspire. When my daughter-in-law, Lady Albinia Cumberland, took her turn of duty as lady of the bed-chamber, I took the liberty through her hands to offer the few stanzas which are here inserted : 'How long, just heav'n, shall Britain's royal maid How long shall innocence invoke thine aid, Enough, dread pow'r, unless it be decreed, To reconcile thee in these evil times, And sure I am, in thine offended sight But spare, Ah spare this object of our love, For whose dear sake we're punish'd in our fears; Send down thy saving angel from above, And quench her pangs in our repentant tears. Yes, they shall win compassion from the skies, And if, whilst every subject's heart is rack'd, Nor will I doubt if thy dear mother's prayer, The sighs of angels are not lost in air, Can then Amelia's sister-suitors fail? Come then, heart-healing cherub, from on high, CONCLUSION. Bring tender sympathy with tearful eye, Bring Hope, bring Health, and let the Muse attend. Stretch'd on her couch, beside the silent strand, From the extremest verge of British land Was ever suffering purity more meek, Was ever virgin martyr more resign'd? Around her stand the sympathising friends, Whose charge it is her weary hours to cheer, And he, whose sacred trust it is to guard The fairest freight that ocean ever bore, In laurels won from Gallia's hostile shore. Now let thy wings their healing balm distil, Light as a sylph, I see the blooming maid Nor thou, my Muse, hast prophesied in vain.' 349 I have now completed what occurred to me to say of an old man, whose writings have been very various, whose intentions. have been always honest, and whose labors have experienced little intermission. I put the first pen to these Memoirs at the very close of the last year, and I conclude them in the middle of September. I had promised myself to the undertaking, and I was to proportion my dispatch to the measure of the time upon which, without presumption, I might venture to reckon. As many of my readers as may have staggered under the weight of such a bulky load, will have a fellow feeling for me, even though I shall have sunk under it: but if I have borne it through with tolerable success, and given an interest to some of the many pages which this volume numbers, I hope they will not mark with too severe a censure errors and inaccuracies Quas aut incuria fudit, Aut humana parum cavit natura. I have through life sincerely done my best according to my abilities for the edification of my fellow creatures and the honor of my God. I pretend to nothing, whereby to be commended. or distinguished above others of my rate, save only for that |