his History of England gives currency to an anecdote which has been many times repeated to the disparagement of Wolfe and has been generally accepted, not only as true in the main, but as accurate in the details. These are Lord Mahon's words:

"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 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 trusted the fate of the country and of the Administration to such hands!"

Lord Mahon seeing the improbabilities of this story which he had received from Mr. Grenville, who in turn had it from Lord Temple, says that it "confirms Wolfe's own avowal that he was not seen to advantage in the common occurrences of life, and shows how shyness may at intervals rush, as it were, for refuge into the opposite extreme; but it should also lead us to view such defects

of manner with indulgence, as proving that they may coexist with the highest ability and the purest virtue".

Wright in his "Life of Wolfe " makes a close analysis of this anecdote and of Lord Mahon's comments. He points out that such a representation is so inconsistent with the character of Wolfe as to demand refutation. The hero's modesty had only a few days before touched Lord Barrington and it was not likely that he should have drawn his sword and flourished it in a gentleman's dining room. It was not likely that a man whose private letters, written on the impulse of the moment, never breathe a boastful word, nor aught savouring of personal vanity, should have acted the part of a braggart in the society of statesmen. Nor could the great minister have entertained a fear for the fate of the expedition under the leadership of him who in the words of a contemporary historian " was formed to execute the designs of such a master as Pitt." Passing from these considerations Wright asks whether Lord Mahon did not, unconsciously perhaps, heighten the colouring of Mr. Grenville's version; whether the latter's antitheses were so striking or his periods so artistically rounded? Without impugning the veracity of Mr. Grenville, Wright questions the accuracy of his memory, for he must have heard the story from Lord Temple many years before he repeated it to the historian. Coming to Lord Temple himself Wright makes fewer allowances for good faith. This colleague of Pitt's quarrelled with him, and after the break in their relations Pitt accused him of divulging confidential secrets, and of torturing private conversations into a thousand time serving forms. "The

fact of the matter when stripped of all accumulations, would therefore seem to be that the sedate, apathetic, selfish peer, whose highest aspiration was the Garter may have been shocked by some hearty outburst of Wolfe's indignation, probably against the cruel practices of the French and their savage allies in America; and upon some nucleus of truth the imaginative minister-who was utterly incapable of appreciating a man of Wolfe's openness of mind and self-devotion to his country-founded an extravaganza".

Thus far we have practically reproduced Wright's account of the affair with his comments. He proceeds further to show the improbability of the story as told by Lord Mahon, but we may dismiss the matter by the observation that apparently there was some foundation for the story, with every probability of the exaggeration and inaccuracy that almost invariably characterize tales which pass by repetition to several persons before being written in their permanent form.

Shortly before the evening when he dined with Pitt and Lord Temple he had written private letters in regard to his proposed campaign which were modest enough in tone to suit Lord Temple had he ever lived to see them.

From Salisbury on the first day of December 1758 he wrote to Rickson, his intimate friend from the time of his early campaigns on the continent, a long and interesting letter. (1)

Amongst ourselves, be it said, that our attempt to land

(1) A fac-simile of this letter is in our possession.

where we did (2) was rash and injudicious, our success unexpected (by me) and undeserved. There was no prodigious exertion of courage in the affair; an officer and thirty men would have made it impossible to get ashore where we did." "We lost time at the siege, still more after the siege, and blundered from the beginning to the end of the campaign." And further in the same letter he says "I have this day signified to Mr. Pitt that he may dispose of my slight carcass as he pleases, and that I am ready for any undertaking within the reach and compass of my skill and cunning. I am in a very bad condition both with the gravel and rheumatism, but I had much rather die than decline any kind of service that offers.."

My opinion is, that I shall join the army in America, where if fortune favours our force and best endeavours, we may hope to triumph."

On the twenty-ninth of January in 1759, he wrote an equally sober and manly letter to his uncle Walter. He says "If the Marquis de Montcalm finds means to baffle our efforts another summer, he may be deemed an able officer; or the colony has resources that we know nothing of; or our Generals are worse than usual."...." I am to act a greater part in this business than I wished or desired. The backwardness of some of the older officers has in some measure forced the Government to come down so low. I shall do my best, and leave the rest to fortune, as perforce we must when there are not the most commanding abilities. We expect to sail in about three weeks. A London life

(2) At Louisbourg a few months previously.

and little exercise disagrees entirely with me, but the sea still more. If I have health and constitution enough for the campaign, I shall think myself a lucky man; what happens afterwards is of no great consequence."

Wolfe had become engaged to Miss Katherine Lowther, a sister of the first Lord Lonsdale. Of this love affair we know little. The siege of Louisbourg and the preparation for Quebec left no time for such correspondence and such confidences as marked his former courtship, and it is likely too that his added years had cooled his ardour while they increased his good sense.

It may not be regarded as strange that none of his letters to Miss Lowther should be made public, but it is rather singular that her name is mentioned by Wolfe in writing only in his will. (1)

(1) A fac simile of this will is published for the first time in this work.

2