The Bravest of the Brave

ss Alice, if I catch you exchanging words with him again, ay, or nodding to him, or looking as if in any way you were conscious of his presence, I wil

tters had her own way. Especially did it show that he was angry, since he so spoke in the presence of Mistress Anthony, h

shown a very unusual determination to have his own way. She therefore continued to work in silence, and paid no attention to the appealing glance

I am determined to have my own way, and the townspeople know well t

aid quietly; "you have been storming without interruption since y

othing short of a scandal for the daughter of the Mayor of Southampton

ng that she is only fourteen years old, and the boy only sixteen, and h

," the mayor said profoundly, "he wil

at present they are only fourteen and sixteen, I repeat that I do not see that it matters-at

In the reign of King William the Third i

atter in so serious a light, and in putting ideas into the girl's head which would probably never have entered there otherwise. Of course Alice is fon

, should have been turned out of his living by the Sectarians, as befell thousands of other clergymen besides him. It was still more unfortunate that when King Charles returned he did not get reinst

him and Margaret comfortably till he broke down and died three years ago, and poor Marg

I must send for the boy and put him in my business. And a nice mess he made of it-an idler, more careless apprentice, no cloth merchant, esp

that, Richard. I don't think you

rprised at you. In what

t a little-prejudiced against him from the first; because, instead of jumping at

of sons of respectable burgesses of this town who would jump at s

ading the lives of admirals and navigators-he was full of life and

come to the gallows. Naturally I was offended; but as I had given you my word I kept to it. Every man in Southampton knows that the word of Richard Antho

r lips to prevent h

ways has been, that Carson deliberately set you against the boy; that he was always telling you tales to his disadvantage; and although I ad

ould have deserved what happened to him-that you

at she should have a voice on that point. However, seeing that in her h

er far away. His position was indeed an unenviable one. As Mrs. Anthony had said, his father was a clergyman of the Church of England, the vicar of a snug living in Lincolnshire, but he had been cast out when the Parliamentarians gained the upper hand, and his living was handed over to a Sectarian preacher. When, after years of poverty, King

during a visit to some friends at Oxford, made his acquaintance. In spite of the disparity of years the union was a happy one. One son was born to them, and all had gone well until a sudden chill had been the cause of Mr. Stilwell's death,

ished him to go into the ministry, he had given way to his entreaties. Mr. Anthony sharply pooh poohed the idea, and insisted that it wa

m for five years the slave of the cloth merchant. Not that the latter intended to be anything but kind, and he sincerely believed that he was acting for the good of the boy in taking him as his apprentice; but as Jack recovered his spirits and energy, he absolutely loathed the trade to which he was bound. Had it not been for Mistress Anthony and Ali

rst place; he hated his work, and, in the second, every shortcoming and mistake was magnified and made the most of by the foreman, Andrew Carson. This man had long looked to be taken into partnership, and finally to succeed his

s-and Mr. Anthony ere long viewed the boy's errors as acts of willful disobedience. This state of things lasted for two years until the clim

agrant rebellion; but a moment's reflection told him that Jack, at the end of his punishment, would return to his house, where hi

s face again. For the first few hours Jack was delighted at his freedom. He spent the day down on the wharves talking to the fishermen and sailors. There were no f

arf, and gave him a letter from her mistress. In this was inclosed a sum of money sufficient to

would ever become Mayor of Southampton. I know what your wishes are, and I think that you had better follow them out. Alice is heartbroken over the affair, but I assure her that it will all turn out for the best. I cannot ask

ey had naturally fallen into conversation at the gate, when the mayor, looking out from the window of h

ut he had seen the captain, who had agreed to take him as ship's boy. Had the mayor been aware that his late apprentice was on the point of leaving he would not have interfered with his intention; but as he had peremp

n entitled to vote for members of parliament were exempted. This tremendous power had just been legalized by an act of parliament. A more iniquitous act never disgraced our statutes, for it enabled justices of the peace t

It was, however, recruited almost entirely from reckless and desperate men. Criminals were allowed to commute sentences of imprisonment for service in the army, and the gates of the prisons were also opened to insolve

men must be had, the law giving justices the authority and power to impress any men they might select, with the exception of th

f Spain, England's feelings in the matter being further imbittered by the recognition by Louis XIV of the Pretender as King of England. Therefore, although her interests we

of the French king with Maria Theresa, the sister of Charles II of Spain, she had formally renounced all claims to the succession, but the French king had nevertheless continued from

Whichever might succeed to the throne the balance of power would be destroyed; for either Austria and Spain united, or France and Spain united, would be sufficient to ove

minds of the people of the country which had thus been arbitrarily allotted, and the dying Charles of Spain was infuriated by this conspiracy to break up and divide his dominion. His jealousy of France would have led him to select the Austrian claimant; but the emperor's undisguised greed for a portion of the Spanish empire, and the overbearing and unpleasant manner of the Austrian ambassador in the Spanish court, drove him to listen to the overture

er in law Louis XIV, sole heir of the Spanish empire. The will was kept secret till the death of the king, and was then public

ostilities by directing large bodies of troops, under Prince Eugene, into the duchy of Milan, and by inciting the Neapolitans to revolt. The young king was at first popular in Spain, but Cardinal Portocarrero, who exercised the real power of the state, by his overbearing temper, his av

y the French agents in his own measures of government, and therefore turned against France that power of intrigue which he had recently used in her favor. He pretended to be devoted to France, and referred eve

dly developed into a graceful and gifted woman, and became the darling of the Spanish people, and whose intellect, firmness, and courage guided and strengthened her weak but amiable husban

ion of the crowns of France and Spain upon the same head. King William might not have obtained from the English parliament a ratification of the alliance had not Louis just at this moment acknowledged the son of the ex-king James as king of England. This insult roused the spirit of the English people, the

sconduct, the English army embarked again. Some treasure ships were captured, and others sunk in the harbor of Vigo, but the fleet was no more effective than the army. Admiral Sir John Munden was cashiered for

elona. It was believed that the Catalans would have declared for Charles; but the plot by which the town was to be given up to him was discovered on the eve of execution, and the English force re-embarked on their shi

all land force under Prince George of Hesse. Schomberg was recalled and Lord Galway took the command; but he succeeded no better than his predecessor, and affairs looked but badly for the al

efense of his own dominion, and Philip was forced to depend upon his partisans in Spain only. The partisans of Charles at once took heart. The Catalans had never been warm in the cause of Philip; the crowns of Castile, Arragon

that they had heard, it was decided in the spring of 1705 to send out an expedition which was to effect a landing in Catalonia, and would, it was hoped, be joined by all the people of that

e eldest son of John Lord Mordaunt, Viscount Avalon, a brave and daring cavalier, who had fought heart and soul for Charles, and had been tried by Cromwell for trea

s brilliant, witty, energetic, and brave. He was generous and strictly honorable to his word. He was filled with a burning desire for adventure, and, at the close of 1674, when in his seventeenth year, he embarked in Admiral Torringto

guns of the castle and fort of Tripoli. The exploit was a successful one, the ships were all burned, and most of their crews slain. Another encou

still but twenty years old, married a daughter of Sir Alexander Fraser. But his spirit was altogether unsuited to the quiet enjoyment of domestic life, and at the end of September, 1678, he went out as a volunteer in his majesty's ship Bristol, w

town, and continued the defense with vigor, and Mordaunt again distinguished himself; but he soon wearied of the monotony of a long siege, and before the end of the y

uncils, and therefore escaped the fate which befell them. He continued his friendship with them to the last, and accompanied Algernon Sidney to the sca

ecuniary trouble. In 1686, therefore, he quitted England with the professed intention of accepting a command in the Dutch fleet then about to sail for the West Indies, When he arrived in Holland, however, he presented himself immediately to the Prince of Orange, and first among

ord Mordaunt as lieutenant colonel of horse, and raising a regiment he rendered good service at Exeter. As soon as the revolution was completed, and William and Mary ascended the throne, Mordaunt was made a privy councilor and one of the lords of th

e alone was free from the slightest suspicion of corruption and venality, and he speedily made e

ng, and longed for a commonwealth. He was constantly quarreling with his colleagues, and whenever there was a debate in the House of Lords Monmouth took a prominent part on the side of the minori

bitter terms against the bribery of persons in power by the East India Company, and the venality of many members of parliament and even the ministry. His relations with the king were now of the coldest kind, and he became mixed up in a Jacobite plot. How fa

onslaughts upon abuses and corruption. In the course of these years, both in parliament and at court, he had been sometimes the friend, sometimes the opponent of Marlborough; but he had the good f

ion against corruption and misdoing, generous to a point which crippled his finances seriously, he was a puzzle to all who knew him, and had he died at this time he would only have