Would You Prefer To Know Him After He Had Left Our
Shores And Become Field Marshal The Duke Of Kent?
Take up his biography by
the Rev.
Erskine Neale, and read therein that royal Edward was a truthful,
Christian gentleman - a chivalrous soldier, though a stern disciplinarian -
an excellent husband - a persecuted and injured brother - a neglected son -
the munificent patron of literary, educational and charitable
institutions - a patriotic Prince - in short, a model of a man and a paragon
of every virtue. But was he all that? we hear you say. No doubt of it.
Have you not a clergyman's word for it - his biographer's? The Rev. Erskine
Neale will tell you what His Royal Highness did at Kensington Palace, or
Castlebar Hill. Such his task; ours, merely to show you the gallant young
colonel, emerging bright and early from his Montmorenci Lodge, thundering
with his spirited pair of Norman horses over the Beauport and Canardiere
road; one day, "sitting down to whist and partridges for supper," at the
hospitable board of a fine old scholar and gentleman, M. de Salaberry,
then M.P.P. for the county of Quebec, the father of the hero of
Chateauguay, and who resided near the Beauport church. The old de
Salaberry mansion has since been united by purchase to Savnoc, Col. B. C.
A. Gugy's estate. Another day you may see him dash past Belmont or Holland
House or Powell Place, occasionally dropping in with the bonhommie
of a good, kind Prince, as he was - especially when the ladies were young
and pretty. You surely did not expect to find an anchorite in a slashing
Colonel of Fusileers - in perfect health, age, twenty-five. Not a grain of
asceticism ever entered, you know, in the composition of "Farmer George's"
big sons; York and Clarence, they were no saints; neither were they
suspected of asceticism; not they, they knew better. And should royal
Edward, within your sight, ever kiss his hand to any fair daughter of Eve,
inside or outside of the city, do not, my Christian friend, upturn to
heaven the whites of your eyes in pious horror; princes are men, nay, they
require at times to be more than men to escape the snares, smiles,
seductions, which beset them at every step in this wicked, wicked, world.
How was Montmorenci Lodge furnished? Is it true that the Prince's
remittances, from Carlton House never exceeded L5,000 per annum during his
stay here? - Had he really as many bells to summon his attendants in his
Beauport Lodge as his Halifax residence contained - as he had at Kensington
or Castlebar Hill? Is it a fact that he was such a punctual and early
riser, that to ensure punctuality on this point, on of his servants was
commanded to sleep during the day in order to be sure to be awake at day-
break to ring the bell? - Did he really threaten to court-martial the 7th
Fusileers, majors, captains, subs and privates, who might refuse to sport
their pig-tails in the streets of Quebec, as well as at Gibraltar?
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