2"* s. VI. 150., Nov. 13. '58.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 



393 



not only bear on their title-page imprescriptible 

 personality, but their contents are indisputably 

 such as no unprofessional narrator could well 

 conceive, much less fabricate. The book, at all 

 events, must have been composed by somebody 

 who had been long and intimately acquainted with 

 every phase of camp-life. Our bibliographers, 

 however, are of a contrary opinion, attributing it, 

 but without either authority or apology, some- 

 times to Dean Swift, and sometimes to Defoe. 



Scott, in his very beautiful edition of the 3fe- 

 moirs, says that " they were first printed in 1743," 

 with " a very comprehensive title," which he re- 

 peats at large. Both Lowndes and Watt likewise 

 refer to an edition of the same date ; but neither 

 editor nor bibliographers happen to be correct. 

 The work originally appeared as The Memoirs 

 of an English Officer^ who served in the Dutch 

 War ill 1672 to the Peace of Utrecht, in 1713, S,-c. 

 (8vo. London, pp. 352.) in the year 1728, and 

 was reprinted in 1741 as A true and genuine 

 History of the two last Wars against France and 

 Spain .... By Captain George Carleton, present 

 in the Engagements both in the Fleet and the 

 Army. The work is dedicated to the Right Hon. 

 Spencer Lord Compton, Baron of Wilmington, 

 &c. In his Dedication the author observes : — 



'' They {i. e. the Memoirs) are not set forth bj' any fic- 

 titious stories, nor embellished with rhetorical flourishes ; 

 plain truth is certainly most becoming the character of 

 an old soldier. Yet let them be never so meritorious, if 

 not protected by some noble patron, some persons may 

 think them to be of no value. To you, therefore, my 

 lord, 1 present them," &c. 



This style of address is little suited either to an 

 imaginary or anonymous hero. It is, as before 

 remarked, too personal to be questioned. 



I have not yet been fortunate enough to meet 

 with the original, or 1728, edition of the Memoirs. 

 That of 1741 appears to be an exact reprint of it 

 (the title only excepted), and contains precisely 

 the same number of pages. It possesses, more- 

 over, a biographical sketch of the author, but 

 which is so manifestly erroneous as to force the 

 conclusion that the writer of it was either grossly 

 ignorant of his subject, or wilfully false. Ac- 

 cording to his account, the Captain was born at 

 Ewelme, in Oxfordshire, and was descended from 

 an ancient and honourable family. He then goes 

 on to relate, that — 



" Lord Dudley Carleton, who died Secretary of State to 

 King Charles I., was his great-uncle, and, in the same 

 reign, his father was envoy to the Court of Madrid, 

 whilst his uncle, Sir Dudley Carleton, was Ambassador to 

 the Htates of Holland." 



Now the Lord Dudley Carleton above referred 

 to, who was knighted by .JaUies I. in IGIO, and 

 created by Charles I. Baron Carleton and Viscount 

 l)orchcstcr in 1G28, never was a secretary of state 

 to the lajl-menlioned monarch, but was cmiiloyed 

 as ambassador, first to Venice, and subscfjucntly 



to Savoy. At the time of his decease (1632) he 

 filled no higher office than that of Vice-Chamber- 

 lain in the Court of Charles ; and all his honours 

 expired with him {vide Collins' Peerage). W^ith 

 respect to the alleged position of our author's 

 father, no evidence whatever exists of a British 

 envoy named Carleton having been resident at the 

 Spanish Court, either during the reign of James I., 

 or that of his successor. Of the last Sir Dudley 

 alluded to (the only party who is correctly de- 

 scribed) nothing is recorded either of himself or 

 any branch of his family, which connects one or 

 the other with their namesake, the author of the 

 Militai-y Memoirs. Genealogists, as well as his- 

 torians, are obstinately mute on the point. 



In the seventeenth century there were two 

 totally distinct families bearing the name of Carle- 

 ton in England ; the one was established in the 

 North, and the other in Oxfordshire. The latter, 

 or rather a collateral branch of it, still occupies 

 the same position. The former emigrated to Ire- 

 land, and settled in Fermanagh. It is now, I 

 believe, extinct. Perhaps no family in the United 

 Kingdom gave so many of its members to the 

 military profession as this. From the time that its 

 head transported himself to ^the sister isle, to the 

 period when his successor. Gen. Carleton, of North 

 American notoriety, was • ennobled (selecting, 

 strange to say, the long dormant title of Dor- 

 chester), parents and children in succession mani- 

 fested the same ardent love for the " tented field." 

 In such a family we might not unreasonably ex- 

 pect to discover the professional author of the 

 Military Memoirs; and, I think, with the as- 

 sistance more particularly of your Irish corre- 

 spondents, we shall succeed in rescuing him from 

 partial oblivion, atid bringing him permanently 

 into the light. 



Closely adhering to the text of his book, the 

 writer of the Memoirs rarely indulges his readers 

 with any facts of his private history. He informs 

 us, however, that his military career commenced 

 in 1672, "when he was about twenty." He was 

 born, therefore, in 1652, and had seen fifty-three 

 summers when (in 1705) he accompanied Lord 

 Peterborough to Spain; That he was then only in 

 his prime may be concluded, as well from the 

 part he played in that nobleman's memorable 

 campaign, as from the fact that he had attained 

 the patriarchal age of seventy-six when he gave 

 (In 1728) his valuable and interesting Memoirs 

 to the world. Well might he describe himself to 

 Lord Compton as " an old soldier." 



That he was a native of Ireland, and a member 

 of the Carleton family, which removed from this 

 country to that early in the seventeenth century, 

 may not be unfairly inferred from the incidental 

 notices of Irish officials and localities contained in 

 his Memoirs. For instance : when " tiie warlike 

 Cutis" (he who inspired in turn the musts of 



