The History and Remarkable Life of the Truly Honourable Colonel Jacque, Commonly called Colonel Jack

But the prince, finding the French in his rear, and not being strong enough to engage again, resolved to force his way through, and commanded his dragoons to alight and enter the wood, to clear the hedges on either side the lane, that he might pass with his cavalry. This they did so vigorously, and were so much too strong for us, that though we made good our ground a long time, yet our men were almost half of them cut in pieces. However, we gave time to the French cavalry to come up, and to fall on the prince's troops and cut them off, and take a great many prisoners, and then we retreated in our turn, opening a gap for our own horse to break in. Three hundred of the dragoons were killed, and two hundred of them taken prisoners.

In the first heat of this action, a German officer of dragoons, well followed, had knocked down three men that stood next me; and, offering me quarter, I was obliged to accept it, and gave him my sword; for our men were upon the point of quitting their post and shifting every one as they could. But the scale was turned, for our cavalry breaking in, as above, the dragoons went to wreck, and the officer who had me prisoner, turning to me, said, "We are all lost." I asked him if I could serve him. "Stand still a little," says he; for his men fought most desperately indeed. But about two hundred French horse appearing in his rear too, he said to me in French, "I will be your prisoner," and returning me my sword, gave me also his own. A dragoon that stood near him was just going to do the like, when he was shot dead, and the horse coming up, the field was cleared in an instant. But Prince Commercy went off with the rest of his party, and was pursued no farther.

There were sixteen or seventeen of our men released, as I was, from being taken; but they had not the luck I had, to take the officer that had them in keeping. He had been so generous to me as not to ask what money I had about me, though I had not much if he had. But I lost by his civility, for then I could not have the assurance to ask him for his money, though I understood he had near a hundred pistoles about him. But he very handsomely at night, when we came to our tents, made me a present of twenty pistoles, and in return I obtained leave for him to go to Prince Eugene's camp upon his parole, which he did, and so got himself exchanged.

It was after this campaign that I was quartered at Cremona, when the action happened there of which I have spoken already, and where our Irish regiment did such service that they saved the town from being really surprised, and indeed beat the Germans out again, after they had been masters of three-quarters of the town six hours, and by which they gained a very great reputation.

But I hasten on to my own history, for I am not writing a journal of the wars, in which I had no long share.

The summer after this our two Irish regiments were drawn out into the field, and had many a sore brush with the Germans; for Prince Eugene, a vigilant general, gave us little rest, and gained many advantages by his continual moving up and down, harassing his own men and ours too; and whoever will do the French justice, and knew how they had behaved, must acknowledge they never declined the Germans, but fought them upon all occasions with the utmost resolution and courage; and though it cost the blood of an infinite number of fine gentlemen, as well as private soldiers, yet the Duke de Vendôme, who now commanded, though King Philip was himself in the army this campaign, made the Prince of Savoy a full return in his own kind, and drove him from post to post, till he was just at the point of quitting the whole country of Italy. All that gallant army Prince Eugene brought with him into Italy, which was the best without doubt, for the goodness of the troops, that ever were there, laid their bones in that country, and many thousands more after them, till, the affairs of France declining in other places, they were forced in their turn to give way to their fate, as may be seen in the histories of those times, as above. But it is none of my business.

The part that I bore in these affairs was but short and sharp. We took the field about the beginning of July 1702, and the Duke de Vendôme ordered the whole army to draw the sooner together, in order to relieve the city of Mantua, which was blocked up by the imperialists.

Prince Eugene was a politic, and indeed a fortunate, prince, and had the year before pushed our army upon many occasions. But his good fortune began to fail him a little this year, for our army was not only more numerous than his, but the duke was in the field before him; and as the prince had held Mantua closely blocked up all the winter, the duke resolved to relieve the town, cost what it would. As I said, the duke was first in the field; the prince was in no condition to prevent his raising the blockade by force; so he drew off his troops, and leaving several strong bodies of troops to protect Bersello, which the Duke de Vendôme threatened, and Borgo Fort, where his magazine lay, he drew all the rest of his forces together, to make head against us. By this time the king of Spain was come into the army, and the Duke de Vendôme lay with about thirty-five thousand men near Luzara, which he had resolved to attack, to bring Prince Eugene to a battle. The Prince of Vaudemont lay intrenched with twenty thousand more at Rivalto, behind Mantua, to cover the frontiers of Milan, and there was near twelve thousand in Mantua itself; and Monsieur Pracontal lay with ten thousand men just under the cannon of one of the forts which guard the causeway which leads into the city of Mantua; so that, had all these joined, as they would have done in a few days more, the prince must have been put to his shifts, and would have had enough to do to have maintained himself in Italy; for he was master of no one place in the country that could have held out a formal siege of fifteen days' open trenches, and he knew all this very well; and therefore it seems, while the Duke of Vendôme resolved, if possible, to bring him to a battle, and to that end made dispositions to attack Luzara, we were surprised to find, the 15th of June 1702, the whole imperial army appeared in battalia, and in full march, to attack us.

As it happened, our army was all marching in columns towards them, as we had done for two days before; and I should have told you that, three days before, the duke having noticed that General Visconti, with three imperial regiments of horse and one of dragoons, was posted at San-Victoria, on the Tessona, he resolved to attack them; and this design was carried so secretly, that while Monsieur Visconti, though our army was three leagues another way, was passing towards the Modenese, he found himself unexpectedly attacked by six thousand horse and dragoons of the French army. He defended himself very bravely for near an hour; when, being overpowered, and finding he should be forced into disorder, he sounded a retreat. But the squadrons had not faced about to make their retreat scarce a quarter of an hour, when they found themselves surrounded with a great body of infantry, who had entirely cut off their retreat, except over the bridge of Tessona, which being thronged with their baggage, they could neither get backward or forward; so they thrust and tumbled over one another in such a manner that they could preserve no kind of order; but abundance fell into the river and were drowned, many were killed, and more taken prisoners; so that, in a word, the whole three regiments of horse and one of dragoons were entirely defeated.

This was a great blow to the prince, because they were some of the choicest troops of his whole army. We took about four hundred prisoners, and all their baggage, which was a very considerable booty, and about eight hundred horses; and no doubt these troops were very much wanted in the battle that ensued on the 15th, as I have said. Our army being in full march, as above, to attack Luzara, a party of Germans appeared, being about six hundred horse, and in less than an hour more their whole army, in order of battle.

Our army formed immediately, and the duke posted the regiments as they came up so much to their advantage that Prince Eugene was obliged to alter his dispositions, and had this particular inconvenience upon his hands, viz., to attack an army superior to his own, in all their most advantageous posts; whereas, had he thought fit to have waited but one day, we should have met him half-way. But this was owing to the pride of the German generals, and their being so opinionated of the goodness of their troops. The royal army was posted with the left to the great river Po, on the other side of which the Prince of Vaudemont's army lay cannonading the intrenchments which the imperialists had made at Borgo Fort; and hearing that there was like to be a general battle, he detached twelve battalions and about a thousand horse, to reinforce the royal army; all which, to our great encouragement, had time to join the army, while Prince Eugene was making his new dispositions for the attack. And yet it was the coming of these troops which caused Prince Eugene to resolve to begin the fight, expecting to have come to an action before they could come up. But he was disappointed in the reason of fighting, and yet was obliged to fight too, which was an error in the prince that it was too late to retrieve.

It was five o'clock in the evening before he could bring up his whole line to engage; and then, after having cannonaded us to no great purpose for half-an-hour, his right, commanded by the Prince de Commercy, attacked our left wing with great fury. Our men received them so well and seconded one another so punctually that they were repulsed with a very great slaughter; and the Prince de Commercy being, unhappily for them, killed in the first onset, the regiments, for want of orders, and surprised with the fall of so great a man, were pushed into disorder, and one whole brigade was entirely broke.

But their second line, advancing under General Herbeville, restored things in the first. The battalions rallied, and they came boldly on to charge a second time, and being seconded with new reinforcements from their main body, our men had their turn, and were pushed to a canal which lay on their left flank between them and the Po, behind which they rallied; and being supported by new troops, as well horse as foot, they fought on both sides with the utmost obstinacy, and with such courage and skill that it was not possible to judge who should have had the better could they have been able to have fought it out.

On the right of the royal army was posted the flower of the French cavalry-namely, the gendarmes, the royal carbineers, and the queen's horse-guards, with four hundred horse more-and next them the infantry, among which were our brigade. The horse advanced first to charge, and they carried all before them sword in hand, receiving the fire of two imperial regiments of cuirassiers without firing a shot, and falling in among them, bore them down by the strength of their horses, putting them into confusion, and left so clear a field for us to follow that the first line of our infantry stood drawn up upon the ground which the enemy at first possessed.

In this first attack the Marquis de Crequi, who commanded the whole right wing, was killed-a loss which fully balanced the death of the Prince de Commercy on the side of the Germans. After we had thus pushed the enemy's cavalry, as above, their troops, being rallied by the dexterity of their generals and supported by three imperial regiments of foot, came on again to the charge with such fury that nothing could withstand them. And here two battalions of our Irish regiments were put into disorder, and abundance of our men killed; and here also I had the misfortune to receive a musket-shot, which broke my left arm; and that was not all, for I was knocked down by a giant-like German soldier, who, when he thought he had killed me, set his foot upon me, but was immediately shot dead by one of my men, and fell just upon me, which, my arm being broken, was a very great mischief to me; for the very weight of the fellow, who was almost as big as a horse, was such that I was not able to stir.

Our men were beaten back after this from the place where they stood; and so I was left in possession of the enemy, but was not their prisoner-that is to say, was not found till next morning, when a party being sent, as usual, with surgeons to look after the wounded men among the dead, found me almost smothered with the dead Germans and others that lay near me. However, to do them justice, they used me with humanity, and the surgeons set my arm very skilfully and well; and four or five days after, I had liberty to go to Parma upon parole.

Both the armies continued fighting, especially on our left, till it was so dark that it was impossible to know who they fired at, or for the generals to see what they did; so they abated firing gradually, and, as it may be truly said, the night parted them.

Both sides claimed the victory, and both concealed their losses as much as it was possible; but it is certain that never battle was fought with greater bravery and obstinacy than this was; and had there been daylight to have fought it out, doubtless there would have been many thousand more men killed on both sides.

All the Germans had to entitle them to the victory was, that they made our left retire, as I have said, to the canal, and to the high banks or mounds on the edge of the Po; but they had so much advantage in the retreat-they fired from thence among the thickest of the enemy, and could never be forced from their posts.

The best testimony the royal army had of the victory, and which was certainly the better of the two, was, that, two days after the fight, they attacked Guastalia, as it were in view of the German army, and forced the garrison to surrender, and to swear not to serve again for six months, which, they being fifteen hundred men, was a great loss to the Germans; and yet Prince Eugene did not offer to relieve it. And after that we took several other posts which the imperialists had possession of, but were obliged to quit them upon the approach of the French army, not being in a condition to fight another battle that year.

My campaign was now at an end, and though I came lame off, I came off much better than abundance of gentlemen; for in that bloody battle we had above four hundred officers killed or wounded, whereof three were general officers.

The campaign held on till December, and the Duke de Vendôme took Borgo Fort and several other places from the Germans, who, in short, lost ground every day in Italy. I was a prisoner a great while, and there being no cartel settled, Prince Eugene ordered the French prisoners to be sent into Hungary, which was a cruelty that could not be reasonably exercised on them. However, a great many, by that banishment, found means to make their escape to the Turks, by whom they were kindly received, and the French ambassador at Constantinople took care of them, and shipped them back again into Italy at the king's charge.

But the Duke de Vendôme now took so many German prisoners that Prince Eugene was tired of sending his prisoners to Hungary, and was obliged to be at the charge of bringing some of them back again whom he had sent thither, and come to agree to a general exchange of prisoners.

I was, as I have said, allowed for a time to go to Parma upon my parole, where I continued for the recovery of my wound and broken arm forty days, and was then obliged to render myself to the commanding officer at Ferrara, where Prince Eugene coming soon after, I was, with several other prisoners of war, sent away into the Milanese, to be kept for an exchange of prisoners.

It was in the city of Trent that I continued about eight months. The man in whose house I quartered was exceedingly civil to me, and took a great deal of care of me, and I lived very easy. Here I contracted a kind of familiarity, perfectly undesigned by me, with the daughter of the burgher at whose house I had lodged, and, I know not by what fatality that was upon me, I was prevailed with afterwards to marry her. This was a piece of honesty on my side which I must acknowledge I never intended to be guilty of; but the girl was too cunning for me, for she found means to get some wine into my head more than I used to drink, and though I was not so disordered with it but that I knew very well what I did, yet in an unusual height of good humour I consented to be married. This impolitic piece of honesty put me to many inconveniences, for I knew not what to do with this clog which I had loaded myself with. I could neither stay with her or take her with me, so that I was exceedingly perplexed.

The time came soon after that I was released by the cartel, and so was obliged to go to my regiment, which then was in quarters in the Milanese, and from thence I got leave to go to Paris, upon my promise to raise some recruits in England for the Irish regiments, by the help of my correspondence there. Having thus leave to go to Paris, I took a passport from the enemy's army to go to Trent, and making a long circuit, I went back thither, and very honestly packed up my baggage, wife and all, and brought her away through Tyrol into Bavaria, and so through Suabia and the Black Forest into Alsatia; from thence I came into Lorraine, and so to Paris.

I had now a secret design to quit the war, for I really had had enough of fighting. But it was counted so dishonourable a thing to quit while the army was in the field that I could not dispense with it; but an intervening accident made that part easy to me. The war was now renewed between France and England and Holland, just as it was before; and the French king, meditating nothing more than how to give the English a diversion, fitted out a strong squadron of men-of-war and frigates at Dunkirk, on board of which he embarked a body of troops of about six thousand five hundred men, besides volunteers; and the new king, as we called him, though more generally he was called the Chevalier de St. George, was shipped along with them, and all for Scotland.

I pretended a great deal of zeal for this service, and that if I might be permitted to sell my company in the Irish regiment I was in, and have the chevalier's brevet for a colonel, in case of raising troops for him in Great Britain after his arrival, I would embark volunteer and serve at my own expense. The latter gave me a great advantage with the chevalier; for now I was esteemed as a man of consideration, and one that must have a considerable interest in my own country. So I obtained leave to sell my company, and having had a good round sum of money remitted me from London, by the way of Holland, I prepared a very handsome equipage, and away I went to Dunkirk to embark.

I was very well received by the chevalier; and as he had an account that I was an officer in the Irish brigade, and had served in Italy, and consequently was an old soldier, all this added to the character which I had before, and made me have a great deal of honour paid me, though at the same time I had no particular attachment to his person or to his cause. Nor indeed did I much consider the cause of one side or other. If I had, I should hardly have risked, not my life only, but effects too, which were all, as I might say, from that moment forfeited to the English government, and were too evidently in their power to confiscate at their pleasure.

However, having just received a remittance from London of £300 sterling, and sold my company in the Irish regiment for very near as much, I was not only insensibly drawn in, but was perfectly volunteer in that dull cause, and away I went with them at all hazards. It belongs very little to my history to give an account of that fruitless expedition, only to tell you that, being so closely and effectually chased by the English fleet, which was superior in force to the French, I may say that, in escaping them, I escaped being hanged.

It was the good fortune of the French that they overshot the port they aimed at, and intending for the Frith of Forth, or, as it is called, the Frith of Edinburgh, the first land they made was as far north as a place called Montrose, where it was not their business to land, and so they were obliged to come back to the frith, and were gotten to the entrance of it, and came to an anchor for the tide. But this delay or hindrance gave time to the English, under Sir George Byng, to come to the frith, and they came to an anchor, just as we did, only waiting to go up the frith with the flood.

Had we not overshot the port, as above, all our squadron had been destroyed in two days, and all we could have done had been to have gotten into the pier or haven at Leith with the smaller frigates, and have landed the troops and ammunition; but we must have set fire to the men-of-war, for the English squadron was not above twenty-four hours behind us, or thereabout.

Upon this surprise, the French admiral set sail from the north point of the frith where we lay, and crowding away to the north, got the start of the English fleet, and made their escape, with the loss of one ship only, which, being behind the rest, could not get away.

When we were satisfied the English left chasing us, which was not till the third night, when we altered our course and lost sight of them, we stood over to the coast of Norway, and keeping that shore on board all the way to the mouth of the Baltic, we came to an anchor again, and sent two scouts abroad to learn news, to see if the sea was clear; and being satisfied that the enemy did not chase us, we kept on with an easier sail, and came all back again to Dunkirk; and glad I was to set my foot on shore again; for all the while we were thus flying for our lives I was under the greatest terror imaginable, and nothing but halters and gibbets run in my head, concluding that, if I had been taken, I should certainly have been hanged.

But the care was now over. I took my leave of the chevalier, and of the army, and made haste to Paris. I came so unexpectedly to Paris, and to my own lodgings, that it was my misfortune to make a discovery relating to my wife which was not at all to my satisfaction; for I found her ladyship had kept some company that I had reason to believe were not such as an honest woman ought to have conversed with, and as I knew her temper by what I had found of her myself, I grew very jealous and uneasy about her. I must own it touched me very nearly, for I began to have an extraordinary value for her, and her behaviour was very taking, especially after I had brought her into France; but having a vein of levity, it was impossible to prevent her running into such things in a town so full of what they call gallantry as Paris.

It vexed me also to think that it should be my fate to be a cuckold both abroad and at home, and sometimes I would be in such a rage about it that I had no government of myself when I thought of it. Whole days, and I may say sometimes whole nights, I spent musing and considering what I should do to her, and especially what I should do to the villain, whoever he was, that had thus abused and supplanted me. Here indeed I committed murder more than once, or indeed than a hundred times, in my imagination; and, as the devil is certainly an apparent prompter to wickedness, if he is not the first mover of it in our minds, he teased me night and day with proposals to kill my wife.

This horrid project he carried up so high, by raising fierce thoughts and fomenting the blood upon my contemplation of the word cuckold, that, in short, I left debating whether I should murder her or no, as a thing out of the question, and determined; and my thoughts were then taken up only with the management how I should kill her, and how to make my escape after I had done it.

All this while I had no sufficient evidence of her guilt, neither had I so much as charged her with it or let her know I suspected her, otherwise than as she might perceive it in my conduct, and in the change of my behaviour to her, which was such that she could not but perceive that something troubled me. Yet she took no notice of it to me, but received me very well, and showed herself to be glad of my return. Nor did I find she had been extravagant in her expenses while I was abroad. But jealousy, as the wise man says, is the wrath of a man; her being so good a hussy at what money I had left her gave my distempered fancy an opinion that she had been maintained by other people, and so had had no occasion to spend.

I must confess she had a difficult point here upon her, though she had been really honest; for, as my head was prepossessed of her dishonesty, if she had been lavish I should have said she had spent it upon her gentlemen; and as she had been frugal, I said she had been maintained by them. Thus, I say, my head was distempered; I believed myself abused, and nothing could put it out of my thoughts night or day.

All this while it was not visibly broken out between us; but I was so fully possessed with the belief of it that I seemed to want no evidence, and I looked with an evil eye upon everybody that came near her or that she conversed with. There was an officer of the Guards du Corps that lodged in the same house with us, a very honest gentleman and a man of quality. I happened to be in a little drawing-room adjoining to a parlour where my wife sat at that time, and this gentleman came into the parlour, which, as he was one of the family, he might have done without offence; but he, not knowing that I was in the drawing-room, sat down and talked with my wife. I heard every word they said, for the door between us was open; nor could I say that there passed anything between them but cursory discourse. They talked of casual things, of a young lady, a burgher's daughter of nineteen, that had been married the week before to an advocate in the Parliament of Paris, vastly rich, and about sixty-three; and of another, a widow lady of fortune in Paris, that had married her deceased husband's valet de chamber; and of such casual matters, that I could find no fault with her now at all.

But it filled my head with jealous thoughts and fired my temper. Now I fancied he used too much freedom with her, then that she used too much freedom to him, and once or twice I was upon the point of breaking in upon them and affronting them both, but I restrained myself. At length he talked some thing merrily of the lady throwing away her maiden head, as I understood it, upon an old man; but still it was nothing indecent. But I, who was all on fire already, could bear it no longer, but started up and came into the room, and catching at my wife's words, "Say you so, madam?" said I. "Was he too old for her?" and giving the officer a look that I fancy was something akin to the face on the sign called the Bull and Mouth, within Aldersgate, I went out into the street.

The marquis-so he was styled-a man of honour and of spirit too, took it as I meant it, and followed me in a moment and "hemmed" after me in the street; upon which I stopped, and he came up to me. "Sir," said he, "our circumstances are very unhappy in France, that we cannot do ourselves justice here without the most severe treatment in the world. But, come on it what will, you must explain yourself to me on the subject of your behaviour just now."

I was a little cooled as to the point of my conduct to him in the very few moments that had passed, and was very sensible that I was wrong to him; and I said, therefore, to him, very frankly, "Sir, you are a gentleman whom I know very well, and I have a very great respect for you; but I had been disturbed a little about the conduct of my wife, and were it your own case, what would you have done less?"

"I am sorry for any dislike between you and your wife," says he; "but what is that to me? Can you charge me with any indecency to her, except my talking so and so?" (at which he repeated the words); "and as I knew you were in the next room and heard every word, and that all the doors were open, I thought no man could have taken amiss so innocent an expression."

"I could no otherwise take it amiss," said I, "than as I thought it implied a farther familiarity, and that you cannot expect should be borne by any man of honour. However, sir," said I, "I spoke only to my wife. I said nothing to you, but gave you my hat as I passed you."

"Yes," said he, "and a look as full of rage as the devil. Are there no words in such looks?"

"I can say nothing to that," said I, "for I cannot see my own countenance; but my rage, as you call it, was at my wife, not at you."

"But hark you, sir," said he, growing warm as I grew calm, "your anger at your wife was for her discourse with me, and I think that concerns me too, and I ought to resent it."

"I think not, sir," said I; "nor, had I found you in bed with my wife, would I have quarrelled with you; for if my wife will let you lie with her, it is she is the offender. What have I to do with you? You could not lie with her if she was not willing; and if she is willing to be a whore, I ought to punish her; but I should have no quarrel with you. I will lie with your wife if I can, and then I am even with you."

I spoke this all in good humour and in order to pacify him, but it would not do; but he would have me give him satisfaction, as he called it. I told him I was a stranger in the country, and perhaps should find little mercy in their course of justice; that it was not my business to fight any man in his vindicating his keeping company with my wife, for that the injury was mine, in having a bad woman to deal with; that there was no reason in the thing, that after any man should have found the way into my bed, I, who am injured, should go and stake my life upon an equal hazard against the man who has abused me.