ome after you, set it down here as
briefly as I may. My grandfather's bark 'Charming Sally', Captain
Stanwix, having set out from Bristol on the 15th of April, 1736, with a
fair wind astern and a full cargo of English goods below, near the
Madeiras fell in with foul weather, which increased as she entered the
trades. Captain Stanwix being a prudent man, shortened sail, knowing the
harbour of Funchal to be but a shallow bight in the rock, and worse than
the open sea in a southeaster. The third day he hove the Sally to; being
a stout craft and not overladen she weathered the gale with the loss of a
jib, and was about making topsails again when a full-rigged ship was
descried in the offing giving signals of distress. Night was coming on
very fast, and the sea was yet running too high for a boat to live, but
the gallant captain furled his topsails once more to await the morning.
It could be seen from her signals that the ship was living throughout the
night, but at dawn she foundered before the Sally's boats could be put in
the water; one of them was ground to pieces on the falls. Out of the
ship's company and passengers they picked up but five souls, four sailors
and a little girl of two years or thereabouts. The men knew nothing more
of her than that she had come aboard at Brest with her mother, a quiet,
delicate lady who spoke little with the other passengers. The ship was
'La Favourite du Roy', bound for the French Indies.

Captain Stanwix's wife, who was a good, motherly person, took charge of
the little orphan, and arriving at Carvel Hall delivered her to my
grandfather, who brought her up as his own daughter. You may be sure the
emblem of Catholicism found upon her was destroyed, and she was baptized
straightway by Doctor Hilliard, my grandfather's chaplain, into the
Established Church. Her clothes were of the finest quality, and her
little handkerchief had worked into the corner of it a coronet, with the
initials "E de T" beside it. Around her neck was that locket with the
gold chain which I have so often shown you, on one side of which is the
miniature of the young officer in his most Christian Majesty's uniform,
and on the other a yellow-faded slip of paper with these words: "Elle est
la mienne, quoiqu'elle ne porte pas mou nom." "She is mine, although she
does not bear my name."

My grandfather wrote to the owners of 'La Favourite du Roy', and likewise
directed his English agent to spare nothing in the search for