I had saved _a hundred and
fifty_ guineas, the earnings of my early hours, in writing for the
paymaster, the quartermaster, and others, in addition to the savings of
my own pay. _I sent her all my money_ before she sailed, and wrote to
her to beg of her, if she found her home uncomfortable, to hire a
lodging with respectable people, and, at any rate, not to spare the
money by any means, but to buy herself good clothes, and to live without
hard work, until I arrived in England; and I, in order to induce her to
lay out the money, told her that I should get plenty more before I came
home.
As the malignity of the devil would have it, we were kept abroad _two
years longer_ than our time, Mr. Pitt (England not being so tame then as
she is now[7]) having knocked up a dust with Spain about Nootka Sound.
Oh, how I cursed Nootka Sound, and poor bawling Pitt too, I am afraid!
At the end of _four years_, however, home I came, landed at Portsmouth,
and got my discharge from the army by the great kindness of poor Lord
Edward FitzGerald, who was then the major of my regiment. I found my
little girl _a servant of all work_ (and hard work it was) _at five
pounds a year_, in the house of a Captain Brisac; and, without hardly
saying a word about the matter, she put into my hands the whole of my
hundred and fifty guineas unbroken!
LIFE AT BOTLEY
[Sidenote: _William Cobbett_]
But, to do the things I did, you must love _home_ yourself.
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