[Rarebooks] fa: LETTER from COL. DE CHARMILLY to GEN. BANASTRE TARLETON, &c. • 4 Pamphlets 1810 (re. GAMBLING DEBTS, PENINSULAR WAR, GEN. JOHN MOORE &c.)

[ArCh]

Auction ending Sunday, November 14. Images and more details can be found at the URL below or by searching for the seller name arch_in_la. 

https://tinyurl.com/4yuvxwj5

Thanks again,
Ardwight Chamberlain
Ann Arbor, MI, USA


Col. Pierre Francois Venault de Charmilly: A Letter from Colonel Venault de Charmilly, Knight of the Royal and Military Order of St. Louis, to Lieut. General B. Tarleton, Colonel of the Twenty-First Light Dragoons, and Governor of Berwick. [BOUND WITH:] Earl Grey's Letter to Colonel de Charmilly, in Reply to a Letter sent in consequence of Accusations said to be made by His Lordship in the House of Peers, the 21st of April, 1809, with Observations. [BOUND WITH:] Answer of Colonel Venault de Charmilly... to the Reply of Lieut. General B. Tarleton... [BOUND WITH:] To the British Nation is Presented by Colonel Venault de Charmilly... the Narrative of his Transactions in Spain with the Rt. Hon. John Hookham Frere, His Britannic Majesty's Minister Plenipotentiary, and Lt. Gen. Sir John Moore, K.B., Commander of the British Forces, with the Suppressed Correspondence of Sir J. Moore; being a Refutation of the Calumnies invented against him and proving that he was never acquainted with General Morla. London: Printed by D. N. Shury and Sold by Sherwood, Neely [et al], 1810. First edition of the last title, second editions of the others. Disbound collection of pamphlets, 8vo (21 cm); [4], 35, [1] pp.; viii, 17, [1] pp.; [4], 14 pp.; x, 81, [1] pp.

Four works in one, all presentation copies from the author to "the military Library at Gibraltar," inscribed by him on either the title- or half-title pages (inscriptions clipped); contents toned, with intermittent staining and various degrees of foxing; first page-gathering detached.

The first and third works are the author's defense of his conduct in refusing to pay money alleged to have been lost by him at cards (whether the game played was Faro, Rouge et noire, or Trente et quarente is a matter of dispute). De Charmilly felt that Gen. Tarleton, who acted as an arbiter in the affair, had "expressed yourself several times and to several individuals, in reflecting on my character, in the most unjust and insulting manner; ...you aspersed my honour in a manner... certainly unworthy the character generally appertaining to a general officer and a brave man." A tempest in a teapot, it might seem, but certainly not to Col. de Charmilly, who appears to have been a rather touchy fellow. He even goes so far as to insinuate, in the second pamphlet, that the general has been consciously ducking him to avoid a duel ("General Tarleton, by the exposition he has made of himself, has proved that his courage rises in ratio of the distance of his antagonist, but falls when he is near"). The general in question is Sir Banastre Tarleton, MP, who, as a young British officer during the American Revolutionary War, captured Gen. Charles Henry Lee, vainly pursued Francis Marion, the "Swamp Fox," and commanded "Tarleton's Raiders," a force of American loyalists who perpetrated the "massacre" at the Battle of Waxhaws (1780).

The second and fourth works have to do with de Charmilly's dealings as an intermediary between John Hookham Frere and Gen. John Moore during the Peninsular War. It's a complicated affair, but suffice it to say that Gen. Moore's Spanish campaign did not go well, ending in the retreat and evacuation of the British Army and the general's death. Subsequently, de Charmilly's honour was once again impugned, this time by Earl Grey and others, a state of affairs that de Charmilly was not about to let pass unchallenged, at least in print. Pierre Francois Venault de Charmilly (d. 1815) was a French Royalist refugee from Santo Domingo (Saint-Domingue), where he had at one time been the president of the Colonial Assembly. He was described by a contemporary as a "meddlesome adventurer." One wonders how well this collection of his querulous pamphlets was received by the British garrison at Gibraltar.