A Cardinal Sin Author:Hugh Conway Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. FAMILY HISTORY AND EARLY PEOPLE. IN spite of Horace's advice—to plunge boldly into the middle of what things you may have to tell— there is mu... more »ch to be said in favor of the New Testament method of beginning with a genealogy. It is, undoubtedly, a great temptation to strike at once into the middle of a situation, hoping you may arrest your reader's attention and excite his curiosity, but unfortunately, sooner or later, events which led up to that particular situation must be disclosed, and in nine cases out of ten, these events are embodied in family history—and all family history except one's own is dull reading. Nevertheless, we must know something about the Bourchier family. This is indispensable, so the sooner the explanation is made the better. We are not called upon to descend the family tree below a certain Robert Bourchier. As he himself could have said but little about his own father, and nothing at all about his grandfather, we may draw the line at him. After Robert Bourchier is history—before him fable and tradition. With these latter we have nothing to do. This Robert Bourchier, who was probably of French descent, amassed a large fortune. His money was made by trade—in the principal seaport and town in the West of England—made by honorable mercantile transactions his descendants boast—by traffic in slaves the detractors of the family assert. But, however gained, his wealth must have been considerable, for in the year 1750 he retired from business, and acquiredby purchase the large estate of Redhills, in Westshire. Robert Bourchier the first died in 1780. He begat Robert Bourchier the second, and several other children. No doubt the latter were suitably provided for, as he left Redhills to his eldest son. Robert the second lived the life of ...« less