England in the Nineteenth Century (English Edition)

Pyrrhus Press specializes in bringing books long out of date back to life, allowing today’s readers access to yesterday’s treasures.
Elizabeth Latimer’s England in the Nineteenth Century is a comprehensive examination of England throughout the 1800s, from the aftermath of the Napoleonic Era to the dawn of World War I. As she wrote in her preface:
“My grandfather, Captain James Wormeley, being in 1775 a student at William and Mary College in Virginia, was disappointed in a love affair, and ran away to England. There, by the influence of Bishop Porteus,—then Bishop of Chester, and afterwards Bishop of London, he obtained a captaincy in the Stafford Regiment, at that time serving as the king’s body-guard at Windsor. He remained with his regiment till 1785, when peace had ended our Revolutionary War. His regiment was disbanded, and he returned to Virginia with his wife,—the lady for whose sake he had left his friends and home.
Twelve years later he was importuned to return to his old regiment; his wife had died, and he pined for association with his old comrades. Taking his only son, my father, Ralph Randolph Wormeley, he went back to England, and placed his boy in the British navy. There my father rose rapidly. He served all through the wars of Napoleon in the Mediterranean, under Sir Robert Calder, Lord St. Vincent, Lord Exmouth, Sir Charles Cotton, and Lord Collingwood. He was made a post-captain in 1815, and became a rear-admiral in 1849,—just fifty years after he had entered the navy. He was one of four American-born English admirals in this century; Sir Isaac Coffin, Sir Benjamin Hallowell, and Sir Jahleel Brenton being the others.
In 1820 my father sought a wife in New England, Miss Caroline Preble, niece of Commodore Edward Preble, one of the founders of the American navy. Their children were all brought up with heads and hearts full of American traditions.
This little explanation seemed necessary to make clear to the reader a few things in my narrative, which I hope may be as kindly received as its predecessors.”