PREFACE

About 30 miles from Limoges, half-way between the communes of Lesterps and Brillac, a path rolls up between meadows and trees to the gate of a house.Five dogs greet every visitor, and the same number of horsessome Arabian, some French trotterspatrol the acreage.In the spring, swallows nest in the beams of the kitchen ceiling; and from a distance a cat keeps an eye on them all, especially the young swallows.This is La Brousse, a sixteenth-century farmhouse whose aged stonework offers shelter from the heat of the Limousine summer.It is the home of Gay Preston and a bolthole for her brother Anthony; it is through Anthony's son, the novelist Alex Preston, my teammate in the Authors Cricket Club, that I have made their acquaintance.The Prestons belong to the ancient house of Grey and a family tree in the bureau of La Brousse's drawing room reaches back into the Frankish kingdoms of the sixth century.Much, therefore, has been written about their extended familyabout politicians, diplomats, soldiers, and short-lived monarchs of dubious legitimacybut not about the author of the nineteenth-century papers that have been kept at La Brousse.These are the work of George Grey, the fifth son of Charles, 2nd Earl Grey, from whom the Prestons descend directly.Upon entering the Royal Navy as a midshipman at the age of fourteen, Grey remained in the service for almost fifty years.Although I address the significance of his career and his papers in this volume's introduction, it may suffice for now to give a brief description of the materials that are presented here.First, there is a memoir of his childhood and early naval career, from his education at Richmond School through his service on the Talbot during the Greek war of Independence, then on the Windsor Castle and the Scylla until 1833.Grey wrote this memoir in retirement between 1870 and 1878.