account of their own weariness. Thus he spent the second night in the open air, without any thing more than a common bandage to staunch the blood. He has often mentioned it as a most astonishing providence that he did not bleed to death, which, under God, he ascribed to the remarkable coldness of these two nights.

Judging it quite unsafe to attempt carrying him to Huy, from whence they were now several miles distant, his convoy took him early in the morning to a convent in the neighbourhood, where he was hospitably received, and treated with great kindness and tenderness. But the cure of his wound was committed to an ignorant barbersurgeon who lived near the house, the best shift that could then be made, at a time when it may easily be supposed persons of ability in their profession had their hands full of employment. The tent which this artist applied, was almost like a peg driven into the wound; and gentlemen of skill and experience, when they came to hear of the manner in which he was treated, wondered how he could possibly survive such management. But by the blessing of God on these applications, rough as they were, he recovered in a few months. The Lady Abbess, who called him her son, treated him with the affection and care

of a mother; and he always declared that every thing which he saw within these walls, was -conducted with the strictest decency and decorum. He received a great many devout admonitions from the ladies there, and they would fain have persuaded him to acknowledge what they thought so miraculous a deliverance, by embracing the Catholic faith, as they were pleased to call it. But they could not succeed; for though no religion lay near his heart, yet he had too much of the spirit of a gentleman lightly to change that form of religion which he wore, as it were loose about him; as well as too much good sense to swallow those monstrous absurdities of Popery which immediately presented themselves to him, unacquainted as he was with the niceties of the controversy.

CHAPTER III.

MILITARY PREFERMENTS.

WHEN his liberty was regained by an exchange of prisoners, and his health thoroughly established, he was far from rendering unto the Lord according to that wonderful display of divine mercy which he had experienced. I know very little of the particulars of those wild, thoughtless and wretched years which lay between the 19th and 30th of his life; except that he frequently experienced the divine goodness in renewed instances, particularly in preserving him in several hot military actions, in all which he never received so much as a wound after this, forward as he was in tempting danger; and yet that all these years were spent in an entire alienation from God, and in an eager pursuit of animal pleasure as his supreme good. The series of criminal amours in which he was almost incessantly engaged during this time, must probably have afforded some remarkable

adventures and occurrences; but the memory of them has perished. Nor do I think it unworthy of notice here, that amidst all the intimacy of our friendship, and the many hours of cheerful as well as serious converse which we spent together, I never remember to have heard him speak of any of these intrigues, otherwise than in the general with deep and solemn abhorrence. This I the rather mention, as it seemed a most genuine proof of his unfeigned repentance, which I think there is great reason to suspect, when people seem to take a pleasure in relating and describing scenes of vicious indulgence, which they yet profess to have disapproved and forsaken.

Amidst all these pernicious wanderings from the paths of religion, virtue, and happiness, he approved himself so well in his military character, that he was made a lieutenant in that year, viz. 1706; and I am told he was very quickly after promoted to a cornet's commission in Lord Stair's regiment of the Scots Greys, and, on the 31st of January, 1714-15, was made captainlieutenant in Colonel Ker's regiment of dragoons. He had the honour of being known to the Earl of Stair some time before, and was made his aidde-camp; and when, upon his Lordship's being

appointed ambassador from his late Majesty to the court of France, he made so splendid an entrance into Paris, Captain Gardiner was his master of the horse; and I have been told that a great deal of the care of that admirably well-adjusted ceremony fell upon him; so that he gained great credit by the manner in which he conducted it. Under the benign influence of his Lordship's favour, which to the last day of his life he retained, a captain's commission was procured for him, dated July 22, 1715, in the regiment of dragoons commanded by Colonel Stanhope, now Earl of Harrington; and in 1717 he was advanced to the majority of that regiment, in which office he continued till it was reduced on November 10, 1718, when he was put out of commission. But when his Majesty, king George I., was thoroughly apprised of his faithful and important services, he gave him his sign-manual, entitling him to the first majority that should become vacant in any regiment of horse or dragoons, which happened, about five years after, to be in Croft's regiment of dragoons, in which he received a commission, dated 1st June, 1724; and on the 20th of July the same year, he was made major of an older regiment, commanded by the Earl of Stair.