Note 301 — Chapter XV · THE CAROLINA FRONTIER.

Boswell has a characteristic anecdote of Oglethorpe, who was very high-spirited, but extremely sensible. When a lad of nineteen or so, he was dining one day with a certain Prince of Würtemberg and others, when the insolent prince fillipped a few drops of wine into his face. “Here was a nice dilemma. To have challenged him instantly might have fixed a quarrelsome character upon the young soldier; to have taken no notice of it might have been considered as cowardice. Oglethorpe, therefore, keeping his eye upon the prince and smiling, ... said, ‘That’s a good joke, but we do it much better in England,’ and threw a whole glass of wine in the prince’s face. An old general, who sat by, said, ‘Il a bien fait, mon prince, vous l’avez commencé,’ and thus all ended in good humour.” Life of Johnson, ed. Birkbeck Hill, ii. 180.