makes it to be; and I know that this God hath the hearts of all men in his hands, and the earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof.' If this earth be good for me, I shall have it; for my Father hath it all in possession. If favour in the eyes of men be good for me, I shall have it; for the spring of every motion in the heart of man is in God's hand. My dear seems now to be dying; but God is allwise, and every thing is done by him for the best. Shall I hold back any thing that is his own, when he requires it? No, God forbid! When I consider the excellency of his glorious attributes, I am satisfied with all his dealings." I perceive by the introduction, and by what follows, that most, if not all of this, is a quotation from something written by a lady; but whether from some manuscript or printed book, whether exactly transcribed or quoted from memory, I cannot determine; and therefore I thought proper to insert it, as the major (for that was the c ce he bore then,) by thus interweaving it wit his letter, makes it his own, and as it seer to express in a very lively manner the Fiples which bore him on to a conduct so tru

stances that hav

great and heroic, in circumoverwhelmed many a heart

that could have faced danger and death with the greatest intrepidity.

I return now to consider his character in the domestic relation of a master, on which I shall not enlarge. It is, however, proper to remark, that as his habitual meekness and command of his passions prevented indecent sallies of ungoverned anger towards those in the lowest state of subjection to him, by which some in high life do strangely debase themselves, and lose much of their authority, so the natural greatness of his mind made him solicitous to render their inferior stations as easy as he could; and so much the rather, because he considered all the children of Adam as standing upon a level before their great Creator, and had also a deeper sense of the dignity and worth of every immortal soul, how meanly soever it might chance to be lodged, than most persons I have known. This engaged him to give his servants frequent religious exhortations and instructions, as I have been assured by several who were so happy as to live with him under that character. One of his first letters, after he entered on his Christian course, expresses the same disposition; in which, with great tenderness, he recommends a servant, who was

in a bad state of health, to his mother's care, as he was well acquainted with her condescending temper; mentioning at the same time, the endeavours he had used to promote his preparations for a better world, under an apprehension that he would not continue long in this. We shall have an affecting instance of the prevalence of the same disposition in the closing scene of his life, and indeed in the last words he ever spoke, which expressed his generous solicitude for the safety of a faithful servant who was then near him.

CHAPTER VIII.

CONDUCT AS AN OFFICER.

I

As it was a few years after his marriage that he was promoted to the rank of lieutenantcolonel, in which he continued till he had a regiment of his own, I shall, for the future, speak of him by that title; and I may not, perhaps, find any more proper place in which to mention what it is proper for me to say of his behaviour and conduct as an officer. shall not here enlarge on his bravery in the field, though, as I have heard from others, that was very remarkable-I say from others, for I never heard any thing of the kind from himself, nor knew, till after his death, that he was present at almost every battle that was fought in Flanders while the illustrious Duke of Marlborough commanded the allied army there. I have also been assured from several very credible persons, some of whom were eyewitnesses, that at the skirmish with the rebels

at Preston in Lancashire, (thirty years before that engagement at the other Preston which deprived us of this gallant guardian of his country,) he signalized himself very particularly; for he headed a small body of men, I think about twelve, and set fire to the barricado of the rebels, in the face of their whole army, while they were pouring in their shot, by which eight of the twelve that attended him fell. This was the last action of the kind in which he was engaged before the long peace which ensued; and who can express how happy it was for him, and indeed for his country, of which he was ever so mindful, and in his latter years so important a friend, that he did not then fall, when the profaneness which mingled itself with this martial rage seemed to rend the heavens, and shocked some other military gentlemen who were not very remarkable for their caution in this respect.

But I insist not on things of this nature, which the true greatness of his soul would hardly ever permit him to mention, unless when it tended to illustrate the divine care over him in these extremities of danger, and the grace of God in calling him from so abandoned a state. It is well known that the character of