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 the second in command, a brave but weak man, to retire before their retreat was cut off. Seeing this, Carleton slipped away and warned Peterborough of what was going on. 'Good God! is it possible?' he exclaimed, and hurrying back snatched the half-pike out of Lord Charlemont's hands, and with a few vigorous words brought his officers to their senses. This, it is almost needless to observe, would have been an over-audacious flight for a romance writer to attempt. Lord Charlemont, it is true, was dead when the 'Memoirs' appeared; but he had left sons behind him who surely would have contradicted the story if they could. Peterborough survived the publication of the book seven years, and he was not the man to tolerate such a statement from an impostor. This is only one of several incidents mentioned by which the genuine character of Carleton's narrative may be tested. It is, of course, not impossible, as Lord Stanhope admits, that Carleton's manuscript may have been placed in Defoe's hands to be revised and put into shape; but it may be asked, what need is there for importing Defoe's name into the matter at all? It is not so much that Carleton write like Defoe as that Defoe could write like Carleton. There is this difference, however, as Dr. John Hill Burton (Reign of Queen Anne) points out, that Carleton, as a rule, keeps his own personality in the background, which Defoe's heroes certainly do not. As the title implies, Carleton's narrative embraces the period from the Dutch war to the peace of Utrecht. At the age of twenty he entered as a volunteer on board the London under Sir Edward Spragge, and was present at the battle of Southwold Bay. He next joined the army of the Prince of Orange as a volunteer in the prince's own company of guards, in which he had for a comrade Graham of Claverhouse. After the revolution he served in Scotland, and by distinguished service gained his company. He was afterwards quartered for some time in Ireland, but having no mind for the West Indies, whither his regiment was ordered in 1705, he effected an exchange, and with the recommendation of his old commander and friend. Lord Cutts, joined the army about to sail for Spain under Peterborough. There he did good service at Monjuich and Barcelona, but was unfortunate at Denia, and remained a prisoner of war until peace came in 1713. The latter part, and by no means the least interesting, of his 'Memoirs' is taken up with his observations on Spain and the Spaniards made during his captivity. From one or two references, e.g. to the recent death of Colonel Hales, governor of Chelsea Hospital, it is clear that the book was written between 1726 and 1728, the year in which it was published with the title of 'The Military Memoirs of Captain George Carleton from the Dutch War, 1672, in which he served to the conclusion of the peace of Utrecht, 1713. Illustrating some of the most remarkable transactions both by sea and land during the reigns of King Charles and King James II, hitherto unobserved by all the writers of those times.' It was reprinted in 1741 and again in 1743, with ad captandum variations of the title, England being then at war with Spain; but after these no edition seems to have been published until that of 1808-9, edited by Sir Walter Scott, and from that time to the present it has been included in every collective edition of Defoe's works. No better proof of its merits could be given than that it has been so often and so strenuously claimed as one of his fictions; but what more particularly entitles its author to a place here is its importance as a piece of historical evidence bearing on a period for which trustworthy evidence is scarce. Its value in this respect has been gratefully acknowledged by such competent authorities as Lord Stanhope and Dr. John Hill Burton, and this is what makes it all the more desirable that Carleton should be definitively removed from the category of fictitious characters.



CARLETON, GUY (1598?–1685), bishop of Chichester, said by Anthony à Wood to have been a kinsman of (1559–1628) [q. v.], was a native of Bramston Foot, in Gilsland, Cumberland. He was educated at the free school in Carlisle, and was sent as a servitor to Queen's College, Oxford, of which he afterwards became fel-