ed at his regiment with
a better equipage than most young officers could afford. He was older than
most of his seniors, and had a further advantage which belonged but to
very few of the army gentlemen in his day--many of whom could do little
more than write their names--that he had read much, both at home and at the
University, was master of two or three languages, and had that further
education which neither books nor years will give, but which some men get
from the silent teaching of adversity. She is a great schoolmistress, as
many a poor fellow knows, that hath held his hand out to her ferule, and
whimpered over his lesson before her awful chair.

Chapter V. I Go On The Vigo Bay Expedition, Taste Salt Water And Smell
Powder

The first expedition in which Mr. Esmond had the honour to be engaged,
rather resembled one of the invasions projected by the redoubted Captain
Avory or Captain Kid, than a war between crowned heads, carried on by
generals of rank and honour. On the 1st day of July, 1702, a great fleet,
of a hundred and fifty sail, set sail from Spithead, under the command of
Admiral Shovell, having on board 12,000 troops, with his grace the Duke of
Ormond as the captain-general of the expedition. One of these 12,000
heroes having never been to sea before, or, at least, only once in his
infancy, when he made the voyage to England from that unknown country
where he was born--one of those 12,000--the junior ensign of Colonel Quin's
regiment of Fusiliers--was in a quite unheroic state of corporal
prostration a few hours after sailing; and an enemy, had he boarded the
ship, would have had easy work of him. From Portsmouth we put into
Plymouth, and took in fresh reinforcements. We were off Finisterre on the
31st of July, so Esmond's table-book informs him; and on the 8th of August
made the rock of Lisbon. By this time the ensign was grown as bold as an
admiral, and a week afterwards had the fortune to be under fire for the
first time--and under water, too--his boat being swamped in the surf in
Toros Bay, where the troops landed. The ducking of his new coat was all
the harm the young soldier got in this expedition, for, indeed, the
Spaniards made no stand before our troops, and were not in strength to do
so.

But the campaign, if not very glorious, was very pleasant. New sights of
nature, by sea and land--a life of action, beginning now for the first
time--occupied and excited the young man. The many accidents