CRESTERTON'S PEACE, WAR, AND ADVENTURE.'

SERVICE in the Peninsula, North America, and France after Water- loo—a campaign with the South American "Liberators," in- cluding some personal adventures—and the experiences of a go- vernor of a London prison—form the staple matter of these vo- lumes. At the age of eighteen, George Laval Chesterton was ap- pointed to the field train of the Artillery, as a compromise between his mother's fears and his own aspirations which looked to the regular Army. In 1812 he was ordered to the Peninsula, but the fortune of war removed him from its more active scenes to the garrisons on the Mediterranean. On the return of Ferdinand the Beloved, Mr. Chesterton was sent with a part of the army to the United States, and was present throughout that ill-planned and purposeless campaign, from the trips on the waters of the Chesa- peake and the capture of Washington to the final retreat after the repulse before New Orleans. Mr. Chesterton returned just too late for Waterloo ; but assisted in reducing some fortresses and conveying the captured artillery, &c., remaining in France with the army of occupation. Reduced to half-pay in 1817, he joined the gallant band of adventurers who were cajoled into giving their • Peace, ilVar, and Adventure : an Autobiographical Memoir of George Laval Chesterton, formerly of the Field Train Department of the Royal Artillery, subse- quently a Captain in the Army of Columbia, and at present Governor of the Rouse of correction at Cold Bath Fields. In two volumes. Published by Longman and Co. services to the Patriots of South America. Mutiny on the part of the British Legion, sternly put down on the part of their officers— incapacity, indolence, and neglect almost amounting to treachery or cowardice, on the part of the Creole Patriots—hardship, privations, sickness ending frequently in death, on the part of the foreigners —constitute the subjects of the South American campaign. When with some difficulty Captain Chesterton had obtained his dismissal, he was captured by the Spaniards, and sent about the country, fully expecting to be shot by Murillo. In his case, however, that usually ruthless chieftain relented. Our adventurer returned to England safe, if not quite sound ; and, after sundry efforts as teacher, journalist, and translator of languages, was elected in 1829 to the post which he at present fills.

The memoir is a readable narrative, varied in place, incidents, and fortunes. The Peninsula and Waterloo experiences may scarcely realize the reader's expectations, because Mr. Chesterton had no opportunities of seeing the larger events, and so much has been written on both subjects that common observation has little novelty. The picture of the campaign in North America is worth perusal for the total lack of definite object it displays on the part of the British, and, except perhaps at Baltimore, the want of energy, skill, and combination, exhibited by the Americans. In a letter written in 1814, the Duke of Wellington had warned the Ministry of the difficulties of carrying on war in America, either from Canada or the seaboard. "You may go to a certain extent, as far as a navigable river or your means of transport will enable you to subsist, provided your force is sufficiently large compared with that which the enemy will oppose to you." The Mi- nistry seem to have considered this an authority to go as far as

they could ; for that was about the principle of the campaign. The troops got to Washington ; destroyed the shipping and stores —which was justifiable ; but burnt papers, books, and a variety of other things, not justifiable—which Mr. Chesterton, who was not in the city, however, considers the result of " excitement " and want of control. After this useless but exasperating work, the army had to retreat, and then made a similar attempt upon Baltimore, where they were creditably repulsed but not pur- sued. They were repulsed more disastrously at New Orleans ; but got safe off, though Mr. Chesterton considers that the death of the commander, and the position in which the army was placed, should have insured its destruction.

"Our bloodless exit after such a signal discomfiture is, in my opinion, cal- culated to detract from the character for enterprise of General Jackson. "His tame forbearance on such an occasion denoted a lack of chivalrous daring, little suited to the fame of a great commander, into which his country- men have delighted to exalt him. He certainly availed himself of ready means to protect the city ; but, with the exception of his first aggression, he took no one step to chastise his invaders, comparatively defenceless as they were.

"At this particular juncture the British had been repulsed with great loss, and were naturally much discouraged ; and, moreover, there was not a single feature in the aspect of the country upon which they could rely for natural defence.

"Our access to the point of debarkation had been contracted and hazardoue. We could never have succeeded in landing had we been opposed even by paucity of numbers. But now that discomfiture, the loss in general officers, and our numerical sacrifice, had spread almost a panic through our ranks, the contemplation of the extraordinarily intricate route by which alone we could retreat, should, in my opinion, have invoked the hardihood of our op- ponents. This was the precise moment for enterprise; but it was suffered to pass away ingloriously unheeded. Here, I think, the reputation of General Jackson appears divested of the high qualifications with which his country has surcharged it.

"The Americans continued supine, while we, at our perfect leisure, by means of the Sappers and Staff Corps, laboured, and successfully, to adapt the banks of the creek, with their reeds and swampy superficies, to the eafe march of our soldiers to the fishermen's huts. The boats meanwhile conveyed as many as they could carry ; and thus the entire force was withdrawn from the position before New Orleans."

In like manner, Washington seems to have been badly pro- tected or defended ; Mr. Chesterton thinks the latter, a few thou- sand men marching about as they pleased ; and when the British army retreated before gathering forces, the pursuit was not suf- ficiently pressed. There are some curious pictures of the lax state of discipline among the foreign regiments in the British service, and the quar- rels of the officers; as well as traits of life in garrison service, and. of Spanish manners, since rendered more familiar to the world by various travellers. One of these was the inexpensive " tertulias"; which the British do not seem to have approved of, especially as the want of refreshments was not ascribed to temperance.

"Throughout our residence at Carthiwena we were admitted to all the distinguished tertulias of the town. The Governor, Don Juan Ruis, kept open house for the reception of company twice a week ; but neither at his house nor elsewhere, during many months, did I ever upon one single oc- casion see other refreshment than iced water. The poverty at that epoch of the upper classes in Spain was extreme. Grandees, with their embroidered habiliments and crosses, were seen making their frugal purchases, in the market, of the cheapest provisions • and they were constantly to be met hold- ing slender baskets containing a little coarse bread, to be seasoned with some very inexpensive fruit or fish. Indeed, with their outward assumption of Castilian pride was combined as much real destitution as might well bespeak the pity of the meanest artisan.

"When on the observance of any national fete, such as the King a birth- day, the British gave an evening entertainment, and, conformably with our national custom, refreshments abounded, the free use made of them by Span- ish visitors provoked universal strictures."

Mr. Chesterton agrees with other writers in his censures of the conduct of the Prussians in France, and says that it caused a cold- ness between the British and their allies. It does not seem, how- ever, that the British always declined profiting by bad example.

"At Namur, I was assigned a billet at the house of a respectable- bour- geois ; and, according to the custom exacted by the Prussians, I Wm fair-

prised by the spontaneous supply of a cup of coffee early in the morning, and, according to the prevailing Continental habit, a substantial dejeaner a in fourchette at about ten o'clock. A respectful inquiry was made as to the hour I desired to dine ; when a nice repast, with a bottle of yin ordinaire, was set before me; and all this gratis, and, seemingly, as a matter of duty. For three days I enjoyed this liberal treatment; which in this case cost me no compunction, because there was a substantiality in all around me which testified to the ability of my host to incur this expense without any probable

inconvenience."

The approaches of the tide are hardly perceptible to the eye of the watcher, but when we look after an interval we trace its ad- vances. Mr. Chesterton is not a very old man, but the change in public morals is very great since he first became acquainted with public business in 1812. Corrupt extravagance seems to have been running riot in every branch of the service ; his particular depart- ment, the field train, having plenty of it shown in a useless multi- plication of inefficient officers and men for the sake of patronage; while mismanagement (still perhaps existing) from want of thought and unity in the different departments was equally rife. Even in 1829 the abuses of Cold Bath Fields appear to have exceeded the satire of the Beggar's Opera and the novelists of the last century as to extortion and corruption. This is an inkling of the state of a principal metropolitan prison less than five-and-twenty years I ago. It should be observed, however, that the new Governor was ' elected by the Middlesex Magistrates to put a stop to it.

"From one end of the prison to the other, a vast illicit commerce pre- vailed, at a rate of profit so exorbitant as none but the most elastic con- sciences could have devised and sustained.

"The law forbade every species of indulgence, and yet there was not one that was not easily purchaseable. The first question asked of a prisoner was, had he money, or anything convertible into money; or would any friend, If written to, advance him money ?' and if the answer were affirma- tive, then the game of spoliation commenced. In some instances, as much as seven or eight shillings in the pound went to the 'turnkey,' with a couple of shillings to the yardsman—a prisoner who had purchased his appointment from the turnkey, at a cost of never less than five pounds, and frequently for more. A fellow called the passage-man' would put in a claim for something also, and thus the prison novice would soon discover that he was in a place where fees were exorbitant and charges multiplied. If he should be singularly untutored in the habits of such society, he would not long re- tain a vestige of his property ; and if a sense of injustice led him to com- plain, he was called 'a nose,' and had to run the gauntlet of the whole yard, by passing through a double file of scoundrels, who facing inwards, as- sailed him with short ropes or well-knotted handkerchiefs. If, however, he were a swell-mobsman, or a chap who promptly assimilated himself to the ways of nefarious society, he would by a sub-current of traffic (paying tri- bute to the turnkey) amass in a few months an unusual percentage upon the money he had invested, either by the agency of usurious dealing or by unblushing rascality ; it mattered not which, provided only the opportunity should occur.

"The poor and friendless prisoner was a wretchedly oppressed man. He was kicked and buffeted, made to do any revolting work, dared not com- plain; and such was the amount of savage usage combined with starvation, (for even his prison fare would sometimes be sacrificed to fraud or theft,) that timely intervention only saved a few despairing wretches from suicide: for that shocking fact I pledge my word."

The subsequent experience of Mr. Chesterton as Governor fur- nishes one of the most remarkable sections of the book ; abounding in sketches of notorious criminals, singular examples of obdurate despair of self, or traits of goodness even in the lowest class of offenders.