Tales and Novels, vol 5 | Page 8

and whose son
was at sea with Captain Walsingham. The captain had taken young
Birch under his particular care, at Mr. Walsingham's request.
Birch's parents had this day received a letter from their son, which in

the joy and pride of their hearts they showed to Mr. Beaumont, who
was in the habit of calling at their house to inquire if they had heard
any news of their son, or of Captain Walsingham. Mr. Beaumont liked
to read Birch's letters, because they were written with characteristic
simplicity and affection, and somewhat in the Irish idiom, which this
young sailor's English education had not made him entirely forget.
LETTER FROM BIRCH TO HIS PARENTS.
"H.M.S. l'Ambuscade.
"HONOURED PARENTS,
"I write this from sea, lat. N. 44.15--long. W. 9.45--wind N.N.E.--to let
you know you will not see me so soon as I said in my last, of the 16th.
Yesterday, P.M. two o'clock, some despatches were brought to my
good captain, by the Pickle sloop, which will to-morrow, wind and
weather permitting, alter our destination. What the nature of them is I
cannot impart to you, for it has not transpired beyond the lieutenants;
but whatever I do under the orders of my good captain, I am satisfied
and confident all is for the best. For my own share, I long for an
opportunity of fighting the French, and of showing the captain what is
in me, and that the pains he has took to make a gentleman, and an
honour to his majesty's service, of me, is not thrown away. Had he been
my own father, or brother, he could not be better, or done more. God
willing, I will never disgrace his principles, for it would be my
ambition to be like him in every respect; and he says, if I behave
myself as I ought, I shall soon be a lieutenant; and a lieutenant in his
majesty's navy is as good a gentleman as any in England, and has a
right (tell my sister Kitty) to hand the first woman in Lon'on out of her
carriage, if he pleases, and if she pleases.
"Now we talk of ladies, and as please God we shall soon be in action,
and may not have another opportunity of writing to you this great while,
for there is talk of our sailing southward with the fleet to bring the
French and Spaniards to action, I think it best to send you all the news I
have in this letter. But pray bid Kate, with my love, mind this, that not
a word of the following is to take wind for her life, on account of my

not knowing if it might be agreeable, or how it might affect my good
captain, and others that shall be nameless. You must know then that
when we were at ----, where we were stationed six weeks and two days,
waiting for the winds, and one cause or other, we used to employ
ourselves, I and my captain, taking soundings (which I can't more
particularly explain the nature of to you, especially in a letter); for he
always took me out to attend him in preference to any other; and after
he had completed his soundings, and had no farther use for me in that
job, I asked him leave to go near the same place in the evening to fish,
which my good captain consented to (as he always does to what (duty
done) can gratify me), provided I was in my ship by ten. Now you must
know that there are convents in this country (which you have often
heard of, Kitty, no doubt), being damnable places, where young
Catholic women are shut up unmarried, often, it is to be reasonably
supposed, against their wills. And there is a convent in one of the
suburbs which has a high back wall to the garden of it that comes down
near the strand; and it was under this wall we two used to sound, and
that afterwards I used to be fishing. And one evening, when I was not
thinking of any such thing, there comes over the wall a huge nosegay of
flowers, with a stone in it, that made me jump. And this for three
evenings running the same way, about the same hour; till at last one
evening as I was looking up at the wall, as I had now learned to do
about the time the nosegays were thrown over, I saw coming down a
stone tied to a string, and to the stone a letter, the words of which I can't
particularly take upon me to recollect, because I gave up the paper to
my captain, who desired it of me, and took no copy; but the sense was,
that in that convent