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Richard Carvel

By WINSTON CHURCHILL Condensation by HON. DAVID I. WALSH I TAKE no shame in the pride with which I write of my grandfather, Lionel Carvel, Esq., of Carvel Hall, in his lordship's province of Maryland, albeit he favored his Majesty. He was no palavering turncoat like my uncle Grafton, whom I knew for a great rascal who had been banished to his estate in Kent County for saying in my grandfather's presence that my mother had not been fit to marry a Carvel. But if Grafton was a shadow on my boyhood, there was also a great light, and this was Mistress Dorothy Manners, my constant playmate. Dorothy bloomed early, and too soon became a great beauty, with all our Annapolis macaronis at her feet. Thanks to her foppish father, Mr. Marmaduke Manners, she gave me to know that none but an English earl could serve her for husband.

My boyhood was passed in stirring times. 'Twas in the summer of 1765, made memorable by the Stamp Act, that I first came into touch with the deep-set feelings of the period, although I had already learned from my friend Mr. Henry Swain, a lawyer and a man of note among our patriots, the doctrines that were kindling righteous revolt. My friendship with Patty Swain, his daughter, had begun early, and it was she who gave me heart to hope that Dorothy, for all her fine airs, still thought sometimes of her childhood sweetheart. Not until my uncle Grafton poisoned his ear against me did my grandfather learn how strong was the republican spirit that stirred me. "A Carvel against the king" was all he said. But I saw that Grafton had triumphed; and to tell truth it was no pleasant thing for me to set my face against the king for whom my father had died.