His father fought under the great Duke of Marlborough in
the war against France at the beginning of the eighteenth
century. His grandfather, his great-grandfather, his only
uncle, and his only brother were soldiers too. Nor has
the martial spirit deserted the descendants of the Wolfes
in the generation now alive. They are soldiers still.
The present head of the family, who represented it at
the celebration of the tercentenary of the founding of
Quebec, fought in Egypt for Queen Victoria; and the member
of it who represented Wolfe on that occasion, in the
pageant of the Quebec campaign, is an officer in the
Canadian army under George V.

The Wolfes are of an old and honourable line. Many hundreds
of years ago their forefathers lived in England and later
on in Wales. Later still, in the fifteenth century, before
America was discovered, they were living in Ireland.
Wolfe's father, however, was born in England; and, as
there is no evidence that any of his ancestors in Ireland
had married other than English Protestants, and as Wolfe's
mother was also English, we may say that the victor of
Quebec was a pure-bred Englishman. Among his Anglo-Irish
kinsmen were the Goldsmiths and the Seymours. Oliver
Goldsmith himself was always very proud of being a cousin
of the man who took Quebec.

Wolfe's mother, to whom he owed a great deal of his
genius; was a descendant of two good families in Yorkshire.
She was eighteen years younger than his father, and was
very tall and handsome. Wolfe thought there was no one