Thackeray's Henry Esmond Author:William Makepeace Thackeray Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE WILLIAM BINGHAM, LORD ASHBURTON My Dear Lord,— The writer of a book which copies the manners and language of Queen Anne's time, ... more »must not omit the Dedication to the Patron; and I ask leave to inscribe this volume to your Lordship, for the sake of the great kindness and friendship which I owe to you and yours. My volume will reach you when the Author is on his voyage to a country where your name is as well known as here. Wherever I am, I shall gratefully regard you; and shall not be the less welcomed in America because I am Your obliged friend and servant, W. M. THACKERAY. London, October 18, 1852 PREFACE THE ESMONDS OF VIRGINIA THE estate of Castlewood, in Virginia, which was given to our ancestors by King Charles the First,1 as some return for the sacrifices made in his Majesty's cause by the Esmond family, lies in Westmoreland county, between the rivers Potomac and Rappahonnoc, and was once as great as an English Principality, 5 though in the early times its revenues were but small. Indeed, for near eighty years after our forefathers possessed them, our plantations were in the hands of factors,2 who enriched themselves one after another, though a few scores of hogsheads of tobacco were all the produce that, for long after the Restoration,3 our family re- 10 ceived from their Virginian estates. My dear and honoured father, Colonel Henry Esmond, whose history, written by himself, is contained in the accompanying volume, came to Virginia in the year 1718, built his house of Castlewood, and here permanently settled. After a long stormy 15 life in England, he passed the remainder of his many years in peace and honour in this country; how beloved and respected by all his fellow-citizens, how inexpressibly dear to his family, I ne...« less