A MODERN TELEMACHUS




PREFACE



The idea of this tale was taken from The Mariners' Chronicle, compiled
by a person named Scott early in the last century--a curious book of
narratives of maritime adventures, with exceedingly quaint
illustrations. Nothing has ever shown me more plainly that truth is
stranger than fiction, for all that is most improbable here is the
actual fact.

The Comte de Bourke was really an Irish Jacobite, naturalised in
France, and married to the daughter of the Marquis de Varennes, as well
as in high favour with the Marshal Duke of Berwick.

In 1719, just when the ambition of Elizabeth Farnese, the second wife
of Philip V. of Spain, had involved that country in a war with England,
France, and Austria, the Count was transferred from the Spanish Embassy
to that of Sweden, and sent for his wife and two elder children to join
him at a Spanish port.

This arrangement was so strange that I can only account for it by
supposing that as this was the date of a feeble Spanish attempt on
behalf of the Jacobites in Scotland, Comte de Bourke may not have
ventured by the direct route. Or it may not have been etiquette for