Esmond in his narrative speaks of Fielding and Hogarth, who did their best work under George II.

The idea is that Henry Esmond, the hero, went out to Virginia after the events told, and there wrote the memoir in the form of an autobiography.

The estate of Castlewood in Virginia had been given to the Esmond family by Charles II., and this Esmond, our hero, finding that expatriation would best suit both his domestic happiness and his political difficulties,--as the reader of the book will understand might be the case,--settles himself in the colony, and there writes the history of his early life.

He retains the manners, and with the manners the language of his youth.

He lives among his own people, a country gentleman with a broad domain, mixing but little with the world beyond, and remains an English gentleman of the time of Queen Anne.