vourable aspect, would construe it a neglect of duty, they were forced to comply; and so he was taken up, and his name that night struck out of the proclamation. It is very true, by this faithful discharge of my trust, I did save the government 1,000l.; but it is equally so, that I never had of my governors one farthing consideration for what others termed an over-officious piece of service; though in justice it must be owned a piece of exact and disinterested duty.

Some few days after, attending by direction at the secretary's office, with Mr. Harris, there came in a Dutchman, spluttering and making a great noise, that he was sure he could discover one of the conspirators; but the mien and the behaviour of the man, would not give anybody leave to give him any credit or regard. However, the man persisting in his assertions, I spoke to Mr. Harris to take him aside, and ask him what sort of a person he was Harris did so; and the Dutchman describing him, says Harris, returning to me, I'll be hanged if it be not Blackburn. Upon which we had him questioned somewhat more narrowly; when having no room to doubt, and understanding where he was, colonel Rivet of the guards was sent for, and ordered to go along with us to seize him. We went accordingly; and it proving to be Blackburn, the Dutchman had 500l., and the colonel and others the remainder. Cassels and Blackburn, if still alive, are in Newgate, confined by act of parliament, one only witness, which was Harris, being producible against them.

When Blackburn was seized, I found in the chamber with him, one Davison, a watchmaker, living in Holborn. I carried him along with me to the secretary of state; but nothing on his examination appearing against him, he was immediately discharged. He offered afterwards to present me with a fine watch of his own making, which I refused; and he long after owned the obligation.

So soon as the depth of this plot was fathomed, and

the intended evil provided against as well as prevented, king William went over into Flanders, and our regiment thereupon received orders for their immediate return. Nothing of any moment occurred till our arrival at our old quarters, the Camerlins, where we lay dispersed amongst the country boors or farmers, as heretofore. However, for our better security in those quarters, and to preserve us from the excursions of the neighbouring garrison of Furnes, we were obliged to keep an outguard at a little place called Shoerbeck. This guard was every forty-eight hours changed and remounted with a captain, a lieutenant, an ensign, and

threescore men.

When it came to my turn to relieve that guard, (and for that purpose I was arrived at my post,) it appeared to me with the face of a place of debauch, rather than business; there being too visible tokens that the hard duty of both officers and soldiers had been that of hard drinking, the foulest error that a soldier can commit, especially when on his guard.

To confirm my apprehensions, a little after I had taken possession of my guard, the man of the house related to me such passages, and so many of them, that satisfied me that if ten sober men had made the attack, they might have fairly knocked all my predecessors of the last guard on the head without much difficulty. However, his account administered matter of caution to me, and put me upon taking a narrower view of our situation. In consequence whereof, at night, I placed a sentinel a quarter of a mile in the rear, and such other sentinels as I thought necessary and convenient in other places; with orders, that upon sight of an enemy the sentinel near should fire; and that upon hearing that, all the other sentinels as well as he, should hasten in to strengthen our main guard. What my jealousy, on my landlord's relation, had suggested, happened accordingly. For about one in the morning I was alarmed with the cry of one of my

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 :