Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 09.djvu/97

 13. 'An Examination of those Things wherein the Author of the late "Appeale" holdeth the Doctrine of the Church of the Pelasgians and Arminians to be the Doctrines of the Church of England,' London, 1626, 4to. 14. 'His Testimony concerning the Presbyterian Discipline in the Low Countries and Episcopall Government here in England,' London, 1642, 8vo.

[Wood's Athenae Oxon. (Bliss), ii. 422; Fuller's Worthies; Collier's Eccles. Hist. vii. 408-15, and Records in vol. ix. No. 307; Dallaway's Sussex; Stephens's Memorials of South Saxon See, pp. 267-9.]  CARLETON, GEORGE (fl. 1728), captain, was author of ‘Military Memoirs, 1672–1713,’ a work which has been repeatedly included in the list of Defoe's fictions, and by such authorities as J. G. Lockhart, Walter Wilson, William Hazlitt, Lowndes, R. Chambers, Dr. Carruthers, and Professor G. L. Craik. The only reason assigned for including it is that it appeared in Defoe's lifetime, and in style and structure strongly resembles his fictitious narratives. The argument, in short, amounts to this, that the book is so extremely like the thing it claims to be that it must be one of Defoe's masterly imitations of it. No evidence of any kind in support of the assertion has ever been produced. Lord Stanhope (War of the Succession in Spain, Appendix, 1833) says that the ‘authenticity of the “Memoirs” was never questioned until the late General Carleton wished to claim the captain for his kinsman, and failing to discover his relationship next proceeded to deny his existence;’ but, however the question may have been first raised, it ought to have been set at rest by the production of Lord Stanhope's evidence proving Carleton to have been a flesh-and-blood hero, and not a member of the same family as Robinson Crusoe. According to the ‘Memoirs’ the author was a member of the garrison of Denia, which was compelled to surrender to the forces of Philip in 1708. But among the papers of his ancestor, Brigadier Stanhope, Lord Stanhope discovered a list of the English officers, some six or seven in number, made prisoners on that occasion, and in it appears ‘Captain Carletone of the traine of artillery,’ the branch of the service to which, we are given to understand by the ‘Memoirs,’ the author was attached from the time of the capture of Barcelona. The internal evidence ought to have convinced any one who examined the book carefully that it is what it claims to be, neither more nor less. Carleton's dedication to Lord Wilmington is followed in the original editions by an address to the reader, no doubt from the publisher, which, after a brief summary of Carleton's services in Flanders and Spain, says: ‘It may not be perhaps improper to mention that the author of these “Memoirs” was born at Ewelme in Oxfordshire, descended from an ancient and honourable family. The Lord Dudley Carleton who died secretary of state to King Charles I was his great uncle, and in the same reign his father was envoy at the court of Madrid, whilst his uncle, Sir Dudley Carleton, was ambassador to the States of Holland.’ There are one or two trifling inaccuracies here. There never was any such person, of course, as Lord Dudley Carleton. The statesman of Charles I's reign was Sir Dudley Carleton [q.v.], created Baron Carleton of Imbercourt in 1626, and Viscount Dorchester in 1628; and it is questionable whether his nephew and namesake, knighted shortly after the elder Dudley was raised to the peerage, was ever actually ambassador in Holland, though he was certainly left in charge by his uncle on one or two occasions when the latter was summoned to England. But as far as the identification of the author goes there is no reason to doubt that the statement is substantially correct. It is incredible that the publisher would have gone out of his way to make a false declaration, the falsehood of which could have been so easily detected at the time, and on behalf of a book in which, in more than one instance, living persons were mentioned in such a way as to lead inevitably to its being branded as a lying production. It explains, too, how it was that the general, who, according to Lord Stanhope, first started the question, was unable to prove consanguinity with the author, for it would have been a very difficult matter to trace the connection between the Irish Carletons, descendants of the old Northumbrian or Cumbrian family, and the Oxfordshire Carletons, the stock of which Sir Dudley and the captain came. The ‘Memoirs,’ moreover, deal largely in incidents, of which a writer like Defoe could not possibly have had any knowledge without access to documents which were then absolutely inaccessible, and in incidents also known only to a few persons and of such a nature that any inaccuracy or untruthfulness in the narrator would have been most certainly denounced. For example, according to Carleton, just before the brilliant coup de main by which the Monjuich, the citadel of Barcelona, was taken, it was reported that a body of troops from the city was advancing. Peterborough hurried away to watch their movements. No sooner had he turned his back than something very like a panic seized some of the officers, and they all but succeeded in persuading Lord Charlemont,