sentinels, Turn out, for God's sake; which he repeated with vehemence three or four times over. I took the alarm, got up suddenly, and with no little difficulty got my men into the ranks, when the person who made the outcry came running in, almost spent, and out of breath. It was the sentinel that I had luckily placed about a quarter of a mile off who gave the alarm, and his musket flashing in the pan without going off, he endeavoured to supply with his voice the defect of his piece. I had just got my men into their ranks, in order to receive the enemy, when, by the moonlight, I discovered a party advancing upon us. My out-sentinel challenged them, and, as I had precautioned, they answered, Hispanioli; though I knew them to be French.

However, on my survey of our situation by daylight, having marked in my mind a proper place for drawing up my men in case of an attack, which was too narrow to admit of more than two on a breast, and which would secure between us and the enemy a ditch of water; I resolved to put in practice what had entertained me so well in the theory. To that purpose I ordered my first rank to keep their post, stand still and face the enemy, while the other two ranks stooping, should follow me to gain the intended station; which done, the first rank had orders to file off and fall behind. All was performed in excellent order; and I confess it was with no little pleasure that I beheld the enemy, for the best part of an hour, in consultation whether they should attack us or no. The result, nevertheless, of that consultation ended in this; that, seeing us so well upon our guard, it was most advisable to draw off. They soon put their resolution into practice, which I was very glad to see; on examination a little before, having found that my predecessor, as in other things, had failed of conduct, in leaving me a garrison without ammunition.

Next morning I was very pleasingly surprised with

a handsome present of wine, and some other necessary refreshments. At first I made a little scruple and hesitation whether or no to receive them; till the bearer assured me that they were sent me from the officers of the next garrison, who had made me a visit the night before, as a candid acknowledgment of my conduct and good behaviour. I returned their compliment, that I hoped I should never receive men of honour otherwise than like a man of honour; which mightily pleased them. Every of which particulars the Ghent Gazetteer the week after published.

We had little to do except marching and countermarching all the campaign after; till it was resolved in a council of war, for the better preserving of Brussels from such insults as it had before sustained from the French, during the siege of Namur, to fortify Anderlech; upon which our regiment, as well as others, were commanded from our more pacific posts to attend that work. Our whole army was under movement to cover that resolution; and the train fell to my care and command in the march. There accompanied the train, a fellow, seemingly ordinary, yet very officious and courteous, being ready to do anything for any person, from the officer to the common soldier. He travelled along and moved with the train, sometimes on foot, and sometimes getting a ride in some one or other of the waggons; but ever full of his chit-chat and stories of humour. By these insinuating ways he had screwed himself into the general good opinion; but the waggoners especially grew particularly fond of him. At the end of our march all our powder-waggons were placed breast-a-breast, and so close, that one miscarrying would leave little doubt of the fate of all the rest. This, in the camp, we commonly call the Park; and here it was that our new guest, like another Phaeton, though under pretence of weariness, not ambition, got leave of the very last carter to the train to take a nap in his waggon. One who had entertained a jealousy

of him and had watched him, gave information against him; upon which he was seized and brought to me as captain of the guard. I caused him to be searched; and, upon search, finding match, touchwood, and other dangerous materials upon him, I sent him and them away to the provoe. Upon the whole, a council of war was called, at which, upon a strict examination, he confessed himself a hired incendiary; and as such received his sentence to be burnt in the face of the army. The execution was a day or two after, when, on the very spot, he further acknowledged, that on sight or noise of the blow, it had been concerted that the

French army should fall upon the confederates under

those lamentable circumstances.

The peace of Riswick soon after taking place, put an end to all incendiarisms of either sort. So that nothing of a military kind, which was now become my province, happened of some years after. Our regiment was first ordered into England, and presently after into Ireland. But as these Memoirs are not designed for the low amusement of a tea-table, but rather of the cabinet, a series of inglorious inactivity can furnish but very little towards them.

Yet as little as I admired a life of inactivity, there are some sorts of activity to which a wise man might almost give supineness the preference. Such is that of barely encountering elements, and waging war with nature; and such, in my opinion, would have been the spending my commission, and very probably my life with it, in the West Indies. For though the climate, as some would urge, may afford a chance for a very speedy advance in honour, yet, upon revolving in my mind, that those rotations of the wheel of fortune are often so very quick, as well as uncertain, that I myself might as well be the first as the last; the whole of the debate ended in somewhat like that couplet of the excellent Hudibras :

Then he, that ran away and fled,
Must lie in honour's trucklebed.

However, my better planets soon disannulled those melancholy ideas, which a rumour of our being sent into the West Indies had crowded my head and heart with. For being called over into England upon the very affairs of the regiment, I arrived there just after the orders for their transportation went over; by which means the choice of going was put out of my power, and the danger of refusing, which was the case of many, was very likely avoided.

It being judged, therefore, impossible for me to return soon enough to gain my passage, one in power proposed to me that I should resign to an officer then going over; and with some other contingent advantages, to my great satisfaction I was put upon the halfpay list. This was more agreeable, for I knew, or at least imagined myself wise enough to foretell, from the over-hot debate of the house of commons upon the partition treaty, that it could not be long before the present peace would at least require patching.

Under this sort of uncertain settlement I remained with the patience of a jew, though not with judaical absurdity, a faithful adherer to my expectation. Nor did the consequence fail of answering; a war was apparent, and soon after proclaimed. Thus, waiting for an opportunity which I flattered myself would soon present, the little diversions of Dublin, and the moderate conversation of that people, were not of temptation enough to make my stay in England look like a burden.

But though the war was proclaimed, and preparations accordingly made for it, the expectations from all received a sudden damp by the as sudden death of king William. That prince, who had stared death in the face in many sieges and battles, met with his fate in the midst of his diversions, who seized his prize in an

hour, to human thought, the least adapted to it. He was a hunting, his customary diversion, when, by an unhappy trip of his horse, he fell to the ground; and in the fall displaced his collar-bone. The news of it immediately alarmed the court and all around; and the sad effects of it soon after gave all Europe the like alarm. France only, who had not disdained to seek it sooner by ungenerous means, received new hope from what gave others motives for despair. He flattered himself, that that long-lived obstacle to his ambition thus removed, his successor would never fall into those measures which he had wisely concerted for the liberties of Europe; but he, as well as others of his adherents, was gloriously deceived. That godlike queen, with a heart entirely English, prosecuted her royal predecessor's counsels; and, to remove all the very faces of jealousy, immediately on her accession despatched to every court of the great confederacy, persons adequate to the importance of the message, to give assurances thereof.

This gave new spirit to a cause that at first seemed to languish in its founder, as it struck its great opposers with a no less mortifying terror. And well did the great successes of her arms answer the prayers and efforts of that royal soul of the confederacies, together with the wishes of all that, like her, had the good, as well as the honour of their country at heart, in which the liberties of Europe were included. The first campaign gave a noble earnest of the future. Bon, Keyserwaert, Venlo, and Ruremond, were found forerunners only of Donawert, Hochstet, and Blenheim. Such a march of English forces to the support of the tottering empire, as it gloriously manifested the ancient genius of a warlike people, so was it happily celebrated with a success answerable to the glory of the undertaking, which concluded in statues and princely donatives to an English subject, from the then only emperor in Europe. A small tribute, it is true. for ransomed