Walpole's reign of peace was over, the "Patriots" had driven the nation into war, and the trade of Colonel Wolfe and his son was again in request. Before he got his commission, and when he was only thirteen years-and a-half old, the boy's ardent spirit led him to embark with his father as a volunteer in the ill-fated expedition to Carthagena. Happily, though he assured his mother that he was "in a very good state of health," his health was so far from being good that they were obliged to put him on shore at Portsmouth. Thus he escaped that masterpiece of the military and naval administration of the aristocracy, to the horrors of which his frail frame would undoubtedly have succumbed. His father saw the unspeakable things depicted with ghastly accuracy by Smollett, and warned his son never, if he could help it, to go on joint expeditions of the two services--a precept which the soldier of an island power would have found it difficult to observe. Wolfe's mother had struggled to prevent her boy from going, and appealed to his love of her. It was a strong appeal, for he was the most dutiful of sons. The first in the series of his letters is one written to her on this occasion, assuring her of his affection and promising to write to her by every ship he meets. She kept all his letters from this one to the last written from the banks of the St. Lawrence. They are in the stiff old style, beginning "Dear Madam," and signed "dutiful;" but they are full of warm feeling, scarcely interrupted by a little jealousy of temper which there appears to have been on the mother's side. Wolfe's first commission was in his father's regiment of marines, but he never served as a marine. He could scarcely have done so, for to the end of his life, he suffered tortures from sea-sickness. He is now an Ensign in Duroure's regiment of foot. We see him a tall slender boy of fifteen, in scarlet coat, folded back from the breast after the old fashion in broad lapels to display its white or yellow lining, breeches and gaiters, with his young face surmounted by a wig and a cocked hat edged with gold lace, setting off, colours in hand, with his regiment for the war in the Low Countries. If he missed seeing aristocratic management at Carthagena, he shall see aristocratic and royal strategy at Dettingen. His brother Ned, a boy still more frail than himself, but emulous of his military ardour, goes in another regiment on the same expedition. The regiment was accidentally preceded by a large body of troops of the other sex, who landing unexpectedly by themselves at Ostend caused some perplexity to the Quartermaster. The home affections must have been strong which could keep a soldier pure in those days.