The Man.* "John Burgoyne was born in London in 1722. The family was of good old stock. . . ." Gentleman Johnny, like many a brave young man of his day or of any day, spent his youth in riotous and genial diversions. A soldier but not inelegant, he wrote a letter to a lord and signed it:
"'I have the honour to be
'With the most profound respect, attachment, and sense of obligation
'Your Lordship's most obedient, humble servant
'John Burgoyne.'"
He corrected his reputation as a fiery fop by leading the Light Dragoons to splendid distinction in the capture of Valentia d'Alcantara. after which he was elected to Parliament and later appointed by the King to be Governor of Fort William. The war with the Colonies started and Burgoyne came to America. To him this place must have appeared unreal and picaresque; as it appears in old engravings and panoramas, a country of little, round hills, of funny irregular cities upon whose wide quiet squares a few bewildered people postured, of dark mysterious forests in which Indians trotted and yodeled and performed their gloomy dances. A citizen of London, he smiled; he watched Bunker Hill as if it had been a sham battle fought in an English park and, when Boston was blockaded, wrote a playlet that amused the inhabitants.
His evil fortune stayed skulking behind the great curtains of the woods until after Gentleman Johnny had forced the Rebel army to evacuate Fort Ticonderoga. After that came the first skirmish at Saratoga, in which Burgoyne won a few downy feathers for his hat; then trouble ran towards him with a war whoop. Due largely to the idiotic incompetence of Lord George Germain, who was sending orders from England, Burgoyne lost the battle of Saratoga. In this, one of the world's fifteen decisive battles, the rocket of British victory broke and splintered down in a bright shower of speeches, excuses, parades and further sprightly but ineffectual engagements. With Saratoga, Gentleman Johnny had lost a war and a continent.
In England again. John Burgoyne began by giving an account, far less prejudiced than those read in most school histories, of how he had lost the battle of the century. This he published in a fine quarto volume prefaced by a narrative in three "'periods'; by which he really meant acts, for a sense of the drama was always strong in his mind." After that he wrote plays, all mediocre, which were produced in London. He died in London, aged 70, on a summer day of 1792.