man's story.

This brief biography the kind reader will please to accept, not in the
precise words in which Mr. Harry Warrington delivered it to Madam
Bernstein, but in the form in which it has been cast in the Chapters next
ensuing.




CHAPTER III

The Esmonds in Virginia


Henry Esmond, Esq., an office who had served with the rank of Colonel
during the wars of Queen Anne's reign, found himself, at its close,
compromised in certain attempts for the restoration of the Queen's family
to the throne of these realms. Happily for itself, the nation preferred
another dynasty; but some of the few opponents of the house of Hanover
took refuge out of the three kingdoms, and amongst others, Colonel Esmond
was counselled by his friends to go abroad. As Mr. Esmond sincerely
regretted the part which he had taken, and as the august Prince who came
to rule over England was the most pacable of sovereigns, in a very little
time the Colonel's friends found means to make his peace.

Mr. Esmond, it has been said, belonged to the noble English family which
takes its title from Castlewood, in the county of Hants; and it was
pretty generally known that King James II. and his son had offered the
title of Marquis to Colonel Esmond and his father, and that the former