The Complete Works (Volume 23); Illustrated (Paperback)

Book may have numerous typos, missing text, images, or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1904. Excerpt: ... DENIS PUVAL CHAPTER I THE FAMILY TREE TO plague my wife, who does not understand pleasantries in the matter of pedigree, I once drew a fine family tree of my . ancestors, with Claude Duval, captain and highwayman, rtu. per coll. in the reign of Charles II., dangling from a top branch. But this is only my joke with her High Mightiness my wife, and his Serene Highness my son. None of us Duvals have been sutpercollated to my knowledge. As a boy, I have tasted a rope's end often enough, but not round my neck; and the persecutions endured by my ancestors in France for our Protestant religion, which we early received and steadily maintained, did not bring death upon us, as upon many of our faith, but only fines and poverty, and exile from our native country. The world knows how the bigotry of Louis XFV. drove many families out of France into England, who have become trusty and loyal subjects of the British Crown. Among the thousand fugitives were my grandfather and his wife. They settled at Winchelsea, in Sussex, where there has been a French church ever since Queen Bess's time and the dreadful day of Saint Bartholomew. Three miles off, at Rye, is another colony and church of our people: another fester Burg, where, under Britannia's sheltering buckler, we have been free to exercise our fathers' worship, and sing the songs of our Zion. My grandfather was elder and precentor of the Church of Winchelsea, the pastor being Monsieur Denis, father of RearAdmiral Sir Peter Denis, Baronet, my kind and best patron. He sailed with Anson in the famous Centurion, and obtained his first promotion through that great seaman: and of course you will all remember that it was Captain Denis who brought our good Queen Charlotte to England (7th September 1761), after a stormy passage of nine days, from Stade. A...