best tobacco
for his Majesty's soldiers; and laughing and jollity for the negroes;
and a plenteous welcome for their masters.

The honest General required to be helped to most dishes at the table,
and more than once, and was for ever holding out his glass for drink;
Nathan's sangaree he pronounced to be excellent, and had drunk largely
of it on arriving before dinner. There was cider, ale, brandy, and
plenty of good Bordeaux wine, some which Colonel Esmond himself had
brought home with him to the colony, and which was fit for ponteeficis
coenis, said little Mr. Dempster, with a wink to Mr. Broadbent, the
clergyman of the adjoining parish. Mr. Broadbent returned the wink and
nod, and drank the wine without caring about the Latin, as why should
he, never having hitherto troubled himself about the language? Mr.
Broadbent was a gambling, guzzling, cock-fighting divine, who had passed
much time in the Fleet Prison, at Newmarket, at Hockley-in-the-Hole; and
having gone of all sorts of errands for his friend, Lord Cingbars,
Lord Ringwood's son (my Lady Cingbars's waiting-woman being Mr. B.'s
mother--I dare say the modern reader had best not be too particular
regarding Mr. Broadbent's father's pedigree), had been of late sent out
to a church-living in Virginia. He and young George had fought many
a match of cocks together, taken many a roe in company, hauled in
countless quantities of shad and salmon, slain wild geese and wild
swans, pigeons and plovers, and destroyed myriads of canvas-backed
ducks. It was said by the envious that Broadbent was the midnight
poacher on whom Mr. Washington set his dogs, and whom he caned by the
river-side at Mount Vernon. The fellow got away from his captor's grip,
and scrambled to his boat in the dark; but Broadbent was laid up for
two Sundays afterwards, and when he came abroad again had the evident
remains of a black eye and a new collar to his coat. All the games
at the cards had George Esmond and Parson Broadbent played together,
besides hunting all the birds in the air, the beasts in the forest, and
the fish of the sea. Indeed, when the boys rode together to get their
reading with Mr. Dempster, I suspect that Harry stayed behind and
took lessons from the other professor of European learning and
accomplishments,--George going his own way, reading his own books, and,
of course, telling no tales of his younger brother.

All the birds of the Virginia air, and all the fish of the sea in season