In the Guards, Bordeaux was more affectionately remembered in connexion with its women than its wine. We left it with regret, and the more youthful and imaginative amongst us said that we were wafted across the Channel by the gentle sighs of the girls we left behind us.
Our army, despite its defects, was nevertheless infinitely better administered at home when I joined than it had been a few years before; owing principally to the inquiry that had taken place in the House of Commons, relative to the bribery and corruption which had crept in, and which had been laid open by the confessions of a female, who created no small sensation in those days, and who eventually terminated her extraordinary career, not very long since, in Paris.
The squibs fired off by Mrs. Mary Anne Clarke had a much greater influence, and produced more effect upon the English army, than all the artillery of the enemy directed against the Duke of York when commanding in Holland. This lady was remarkable for her beauty and her fascinations; and few came within the circle over which she presided who did not acknowledge her superior power. Her wit, which kept the House of Commons, during her examination, in a continued state of merriment, was piquant and saucy. Her answers on that occasion have been so often brought before the public, that I need not repeat them; but, in private life, her quick repartee, and her brilliant sallies, rendered her a lively, though not always an agreeable companion. As for prudence, she had none; her dearest friend, if she had any, was just as likely to be made the object of her ridicule as the most obnoxious person of her acquaintance.
Her narrative of her first introduction to the Duke of York has often been repeated; but, as all her stories were considered apocryphal, it is difficult to arrive at a real history of her career. Certain however, is it that, about the age of sixteen, she was residing at Blackheath--a sweet, pretty, lively girl--when, in her daily walk across the heath, she was passed, on two or three occasions, by a handsome, well-dressed cavalier, who, finding that she recognised his salute, dismounted; pleased with her manner and wit, he begged to be allowed to introduce a friend. Accordingly, on her consenting, a person to whom the cavalier appeared to pay every sort of deference was presented to her, and the acquaintance ripened into something more than friendship. Not the slightest idea had the young lady of the position in society of her lover, until she accompanied him, on his invitation, to the theatre, where she occupied a private box, when she was surprised at the ceremony with which she was treated, and at observing that every eye and every lorgnette in the house were directed towards her in the course of the evening. She accepted this as a tribute to her beauty. Finding that she could go again to the theatre when she pleased, and occupy the same box, she availed herself of this opportunity with a female friend, and was not a little astonished at being addressed as Her Royal Highness. She then discovered that the individual into whose affections she had insinuated herself was the son of the King, the Duke of York, who had not long before united himself to a lady, for whom she had been mistaken.