The History of Henry Esmond | Page 3

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THE HISTORY OF HENRY ESMOND, ESQ.
A COLONEL IN THE SERVICE OF HER MAJESTY QUEEN ANNE
WRITTEN BY HIMSELF
by
WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY

Boston, Estes and Lauriat, Publishers

TO THE RIGHT HONORABLE
WILLIAM BINGHAM, LORD ASHBURTON.
MY DEAR LORD,
The writer of a book which copies the manners and language of Queen
Anne's time, must not omit the Dedication to the Patron; and I ask leave
to inscribe this volume to your Lordship, for the sake of the great

kindness and friendship which I owe to you and yours.
My volume will reach you when the Author is on his voyage to a
country where your name is as well known as here. Wherever I am, I
shall gratefully regard you; and shall not be the less welcomed in
America because I am,
Your obliged friend and servant,
W. M. THACKERAY.
LONDON, October 18, 1852.

PREFACE.
THE ESMONDS OF VIRGINIA.
The estate of Castlewood, in Virginia, which was given to our
ancestors by King Charles the First, as some return for the sacrifices
made in his Majesty's cause by the Esmond family, lies in
Westmoreland county, between the rivers Potomac and Rappahannock,
and was once as great as an English Principality, though in the early
times its revenues were but small. Indeed, for near eighty years after
our forefathers possessed them, our plantations were in the hands of
factors, who enriched themselves one after another, though a few
scores of hogsheads of tobacco were all the produce that, for long after
the Restoration, our family received from their Virginian estates.
My dear and honored father, Colonel Henry Esmond, whose history,
written by himself, is contained in the accompanying volume, came to
Virginia in the year 1718, built his house of Castlewood, and here
permanently settled. After a long stormy life in England, he passed the
remainder of his many years in peace and honor in this country; how
beloved and respected by all his fellow-citizens, how inexpressibly dear
to his family, I need not say. His whole life was a benefit to all who
were connected with him. He gave the best example, the best advice,
the most bounteous hospitality to his friends; the tenderest care to his
dependants; and bestowed on those of his immediate family such a
blessing of fatherly love and protection as can never be thought of, by
us, at least, without veneration and thankfulness; and my sons' children,
whether established here in our Republic, or at home in the always
beloved mother country, from which our late quarrel hath separated us,
may surely be proud to be descended from one who in all ways was so
truly noble.

My dear mother died in 1736, soon after our return from England,
whither my parents took me for my education; and where I made the
acquaintance of Mr. Warrington, whom my children never saw. When
it pleased heaven, in the bloom of his youth, and after but a few months
of a most happy union, to remove him from me, I owed my recovery
from the grief which that calamity caused me, mainly to my dearest
father's tenderness, and then to the blessing vouchsafed to me in the
birth of my two beloved boys. I know the fatal differences which
separated them in politics never disunited their hearts; and as I can love
them both, whether wearing the King's colors or the Republic's, I am
sure that they love me and one another, and him above all, my father
and theirs, the dearest friend of their childhood, the noble gentleman
who bred them from their infancy in the practice and knowledge of
Truth, and Love and Honor.
My children will never forget the appearance and figure of their revered
grandfather; and I wish I possessed the art of drawing (which my papa
had in perfection), so that I could leave to our descendants a portrait of
one who was so good and so respected. My father was