Mr. Webb, reading the Gazette, looked very strange—slapped it down on the table—then sprung up in his place, and began,—“Will your highness please to ——”
His grace the Duke of Marlborough here jumped up too—“There's some mistake, my dear General Webb.”
“Your grace had better rectify it,” says Mr. Webb, holding out the letter; but he was five off his grace the prince duke, who, besides, was higher than the general (being seated with the Prince of Savoy, the Electoral Prince of Hanover, and the envoys of Prussia and Denmark, under a baldaquin), and Webb could not reach him, tall as he was.
“Stay,” says he, with a smile, as if catching at some idea, and then, with a perfect courtesy, drawing his sword, he ran the Gazette through with the point, and said, “Permit me to hand it to your grace.”
The duke looked very black. “Take it,” says he, to his master of the horse, who was waiting behind him.
The lieutenant-general made a very low bow, and retired and finished his glass. The Gazette in which Mr. Cardonnel, the duke's secretary, gave an account of the victory of Wynendael, mentioned Mr. Webb's name, but gave the sole praise and conduct of the action to the duke's favourite, Mr. Cadogan.
There was no little talk and excitement occasioned by this strange behaviour of General Webb, who had almost drawn a sword upon the commander-in-chief; but the general, after the first outbreak of his anger, mastered it outwardly altogether; and, by his subsequent behaviour, had the satisfaction of even more angering the commander-in-chief, than he could have done by any public exhibition of resentment.
On returning to his quarters, and consulting with his chief adviser, Mr. Esmond, who was now entirely in the general's confidence, and treated by him as a friend, and almost a son, Mr. Webb writ a letter to his grace the commander-in-chief, in which he said:—
Your grace must be aware that the sudden perusal of the London Gazette, in which your grace's secretary, Mr. Cardonnel, hath mentioned Major-General Cadogan's name, as the officer commanding in the late action of Wynendael, must have caused a feeling of anything but pleasure to the general who fought that action.
Your grace must be aware that Mr. Cadogan was not even present at the battle, though he arrived with squadrons of horse at its close, and put himself under the command of his superior officer. And as the result of the battle of Wynendael, in which Lieutenant-General Webb had the good fortune to command, was the capture of Lille, the relief of Brussels, then invested by the enemy under the Elector of Bavaria, the restoration of the great cities of Ghent and Bruges, of which the enemy (by treason within the walls) had got possession in the previous year: Mr. Webb cannot consent to forgo the honours of such a success and service, for the benefit of Mr. Cadogan, or any other person.