ngland."

Whether the troops were angry at this repartee or no, 'tis certain
something put them in a fury; for, not being able to get possession of
Cadiz, our people seized upon Port Saint Mary's and sacked it, burning
down the merchants' storehouses, getting drunk with the famous wines
there, pillaging and robbing quiet houses and convents, murdering and
doing worse. And the only blood which Mr. Esmond drew in this shameful
campaign, was the knocking down an English sentinel with a half-pike,
who was offering insult to a poor trembling nun. Is she going to turn
out a beauty? or a princess? or perhaps Esmond's mother that he had lost
and never seen? Alas no, it was but a poor wheezy old dropsical woman,
with a wart upon her nose. But having been early taught a part of the
Roman religion, he never had the horror of it that some Protestants have
shown, and seem to think to be a part of ours.

After the pillage and plunder of St. Mary's and an assault upon a fort
or two, the troops all took shipping, and finished their expedition, at
any rate, more brilliantly than it had begun. Hearing that the French
fleet with a great treasure was in Vigo Bay, our Admirals, Rooke and
Hopson, pursued the enemy thither; the troops landed and carried the
forts that protected the bay, Hopson passing the boom first on board
his ship the "Torbay," and the rest of the ships, English and Dutch,
following him. Twenty ships were burned or taken in the Port of
Redondilla, and a vast deal more plunder than was ever accounted for;
but poor men before that expedition were rich afterwards, and so often
was it found and remarked that the Vigo officers came home with pockets
full of money, that the notorious Jack Shafto, who made such a figure at
the coffeehouses and gaming-tables in London, and gave out that he had
been a soldier at Vigo, owned, when he was about to be hanged, that
Bagshot Heath had been HIS Vigo, and that he only spoke of La Redondilla
to turn away people's eyes from the real place where the booty lay.
Indeed, Hounslow or Vigo--which matters much? The latter was a bad
business, though Mr. Addison did sing its praises in Latin. That honest
gentleman's muse had an eye to the main chance; and I doubt whether she
saw much inspiration in the losing side.

But though Esmond, for his part, got no share of this fabulous booty,
one great prize which he had out of the campaign was, that excitement of
action and change of scene, which shook of