[190] "The horror of the night, the precipice scaled by Wolfe, the empire he with a handful of men added to England, and the glorious catastrophe of contentedly terminating life where his fame began ... ancient story may be ransacked, and ostentatious philosophy thrown into the account, before an episode can be found to rank with Wolfe's."—Pitt's Speech on the Motion for erecting a Monument to Wolfe, related in Walpole's Memoirs of George II., p. 393.
[191] "You know they pique themselves much upon their Jewish name, and call cousins with the Virgin Mary. They have a picture in the family, where she is made to say to the founder of the houses, 'Couvrez-vous, mon cousin.' He replies, 'Non pas, mas très sainte cousine, je sais trop bien le respect que je vous dois.' There is said to have been another equally absurd picture in the same family, in which Noah is represented going into the ark, carrying under his arm a small trunk, on which was written, 'Papiers de la Maison de Lévis.'"—Walpole's Letters to Sir H. Mann, August 17th, 1749.
[192] See Appendix, [No. LXXI.]
[193] "The notification of a probable disappointment at Quebec came only to heighten the pleasure of the conquest. You may now give yourself what airs you please; you are master of East and West Indies. An embassador is the only man in the world whom bullying becomes. I beg your pardon, but you are spies, if you are not bragadocios. All precedents are on your side: Persians, Greeks, Romans, always insulted their neighbors when they had taken Quebec. It was a very singular affair, the generals on both sides slain, and on both sides the second in command wounded—in short, very near what battles should be, in which only the principals ought to suffer. If their army has not ammunition and spirit enough to fall again upon ours before Amherst comes up, all North America is ours! Poetic justice could not have been executed with more rigor than it has been on the perjury, treachery, and usurpations of the French.... It appears that the victory was owing to the impracticability, as the French thought, and to desperate resolution on our side. What a scene! an army in the night dragging itself up a precipice by stumps of trees to assault a town and attack an army strongly intrenched and double in numbers. Adieu! I think I shall not write to you again this twelvemonth; for, like Alexander, we have no more worlds left to conquer.
"P.S.—Monsieur Fleurot is said to be sailed with his tiny squadron; but can the lords of America be afraid of half a dozen canoes? Mr. Chute is sitting by me, and says nobody is more obliged to Mr. Pitt than you are: he has raised you from a very uncomfortable situation to hold your head above the Capitol."—Walpole's Letters to Sir H. Mann, October 19, 1759.
[194] "The late Mrs. Wolfe, the mother of the brave general of that name, has very humanely left the residue of her estate and effects, after debts and legacies are paid, to be disposed of among the widows and families of the officers who were employed in the military land service under her son, General Wolfe.
"The executors of the late Mrs. Henrietta Wolfe, mother of the brave General Wolfe, have paid a legacy of £1000, left by her, to the Incorporated Society in Dublin for promoting English Protestant working schools in Ireland."—Annual Register, 1765.
[195] See Appendix, [No. LXVII.]