great part of the winter. I never press her on these subjects. Farewell, and Heaven preserve and bless you. I think it as well to enclose this to Lord Orf[ord], having a word to say. This is not a few lines. Once more Heaven preserve and bless you.1 1 Add. MSS. 37727, f. 198. SECTION IV THE LOVE-STORY OF MARY BERRY (1795-1796) Mary Berry in love at sixteen-Her one serious love-affair-General Charles O'Hara-His early career-He first meets Mary Berry-His further career-At Gibraltar and Toulon-Imprisoned in the Luxembourg-On his return proposes to Mary Berry-She accepts him-The engagement kept a secret from all but Mrs. Damer-The death of Field-Marshal the Hon. H. S. Conway-Correspondence, mainly concerning O'Hara, between Mrs. Damer and Mary Berry-Agnes Berry's love-affair-The departure of O'Hara to take up the Governorship of Gibraltar-a penportrait of O'Hara at Gibraltar-Mary Berry's reasons for not marrying him before his departure-The breaking off of the engagement-Mary Berry's regrets after forty years. M ARY BERRY, in her "Notes of Early Life," mentions that in 1779, when she was sixteen years old, she conceived a girlish passion for a Mr. Bowman, which, owing to the wise intervention of her relatives, was nipped in the bud. The one serious love-affair of her life, however, did not occur until 1794, when she was thirty-one. Then she lost her heart to General O'Hara. The story is briefly alluded to in Mary Berry's Journals, where there is a passing reference to a packet of letters. It is a selection of these letters that is now for the first time published. O'Hara, who was born about 1740, was an illegitimate son of James O'Hara, second Lord Tyrawley. Sent at an early age to Westminster School, he left there in 1752, when he was appointed to a cornetcy in the 3rd Dragoons. Four years later he was a lieutenant in the Coldstream Guards, of which regiment his father was colonel. He was aide-de-camp in Germany to Lord Granby after the battle of Minden (1759), and went to Portugal as quarter-master-general of the troops under Lord Tyrawley in the campaign of 1762. After holding a command in the African Corps at Goree, he served in the American war as brigadier-general, and in this position distinguished himself and earned honourable mention in despatches. He was with Cornwallis at Yorktown, and was kept prisoner until February 1782, when he was exchanged. Before his release he had been promoted to the rank of major-general, and given the colonelcy of the 22nd Foot. In 1783 he returned to England, but his financial affairs were in so lamentable a condition that considerations of his personal freedom made it advisable for him in the following year to go abroad for a while. In Italy, in the spring, he made the acquaintance of the Berrys,1 and, as a friend of the Conways and Horace Walpole, was heartily welcomed by them. That the acquaintance ripened into an intimacy which endured through the absence of the soldier at Gibraltar from 1787 to 1790, is indicated in a letter written in October of the latter year to Mary Berry by Horace Walpole: "Boyd 2 is made Governor of Gibraltar, and somebody, I know not whom, is appointed Lieutenant-Governor in the place of your friend O'Hara-I know not how or why, but shall be 1 The meeting is recorded in Mary Berry's Journals (i. 118):— "Friday, 21st [May 1784].-Arrived at Terni. General O'Hara and Mr. Conway passed us upon the road; spent the evening with us. "Saturday, 22nd.-The General and Mr. Conway breakfasted with us between four and five o'clock, and set out with us immediately afterwards in two calèches to see the cascade; it is five miles from Terni." 2 General Sir Robert Boyd (1710-1794). " sorry if he is mortified, and you consequently.' Walpole mentions him in another letter, February 20, 1791 : "O'Hara is come to town, and you will love him better than ever; he persuaded the captain of the ship, whom you will love for being persuaded, to stop at Lisbon that he might see Mrs. Damer. O'Hara has been shockingly treated [in not having been made LieutenantGovernor of Gibraltar]." Three weeks later Walpole saw O'Hara, and tells Mary Berry of the meeting: "I have seen O'Hara with his face as ruddy and black and his teeth as white as ever, and as fond of you two, and as grieved for your fall as anybody-but I. He has got a better regiment." The better regiment was the 74th Highlanders, which, being on the Indian establishment, was a lucrative post. O'Hara became Lieutenant-Governor of Gibraltar in 1792; and in September of the following year, having been promoted lieutenant-general, went as governor to Toulon. "If it can be preserved," Walpole wrote to Mary Berry, "he will keep it." Toulon had surrendered to the English at the end of August, when Admiral Lord Hood took possession of it in the name of Louis XVIII; but, after the new commandant had taken up his duties, on November 23, it was attacked and recaptured by Napoleon. O'Hara was taken prisoner, and kept in the Luxembourg until August 1795, when he was exchanged for General Rochambeau. Shortly after O'Hara's return to England, he went to Cheltenham, where the Berrys were then staying. "I am delighted that you have got O'Hara," Walpole wrote to the elder 1 Mary Berry, Journals and Correspondence, i. 232. 3 Ibid., ix. 303. sister, September 1, 1795. "How he must feel his felicity in being at liberty to rove about as much as he likes. Still I shall not admire his volatility if he quits you soon." When Walpole wrote, Mary Berry and O'Hara were already engaged, but the engagement was for the time being kept a secret from everybody but Mrs. Damer. The Hon. Mrs. Damer 2 to Mary Berry PARK PLACE, Friday Morning, August 28, 1795. I am just returned from sunning myself on a bench placed under the orange trees near the greenhouse, where I was reading Terence's Heauton-timoroumenos, and I cannot say how much more I like the play and how much more interesting it seems to me than I thought it was, and yet there is no event one does not see and foresee from the very first scenes. The wind has been for these two last days cold and autumnal, but, as I said, I regret not this summer. Yesterday I had one of my bad headaches, and to-day it has a feel of not being closed, and a sensation very uncomfortable that I fear you will understand too well. Mrs. Hervey, as I was walking a little way with them on their outset this morning, chose for the subject of her most earnest and vehement conversation, a dissertation on Dorimant's being, which she had heard he was, or not being, as she believed, married to the woman to whom he has been so long attached. She was determined to collect the opinion of every one 1 Mary Berry, Journals and Correspondence, i. 475. 2 Mrs. Damer was at this time in mourning for her father, Field-Marshal the Hon. Henry Seymour Conway, who had died at Park Place on July 9. By his will he left Park Place to his wife, Caroline, Lady Aylesbury. Lady Aylesbury, however, at the end of the year disposed of the property to Lord Malmesbury, and went to live with her daughter, Mrs. Damer. |