THE SOLDIER OF FORTUNE 57 



writer is pleased to consider his natural propensity 

 toward treason ! 1 Such absurdities show that even 

 the industrious writers of town histories do not always 

 consult biographical dictionaries and other easily 

 accessible sources of information, but it is a pity that 

 they should find their way into print. Whether the 

 Cheshire family to which Charles Lee belonged was 

 in any remote way connected with the Lees of Vir- 

 ginia is uncertain. Of Charles Lee's immediate 

 ancestry little is known except that he was the young- 

 est son of John Lee, of Dernhall in Cheshire, and 

 Isabella, daughter of Sir Henry Bunbury, of Stanney 

 in the same county. John Lee was for some time 

 captain of dragoons, and at length, after 1742, colonel 

 of the 44th regiment of infantry. Charles Lee was 

 born at Dernhall in 1731, and is said to have received 

 a commission in the army at the age of eleven. This 

 seems at first a ridiculous story ; but that was an age 

 of abuses, and a study of the British army list in the 

 good old days of the two first Georges brings to light 

 some astonishing facts. Ensigns and cornets were 

 duly enrolled, and drew their quarterly stipends, before 

 leaving the nursery ; and the Duchess of Marlborough, 

 in one of her letters, has something still better to tell. 

 Colonel Lepel made his own daughter a cornet in his 

 regiment as soon as she was born ; and why not ? asks 

 the duchess; at that time of life a girl was quite as 

 useful to the army as a boy. This girl was afterward 

 Lady Hervey, and she went on drawing her salary as 



1 " Charles Lee died a miserable, neglected, and disappointed man. It 

 would seem that treason is hereditary, as his son, the late General Lee, 

 commander-in-chief of the Southern Rebellion (sic), followed in the foot- 

 steps of his father." D. H. Greene's "History of East Greenwich, R.I., 11 

 p. 259. 



