unteers had renewed their offer, (for so we understood their
representation was;) and he, from what he had heard before from the
secretary of state, not expecting the effect it would have, answered me,
that their offer could not be accepted. But to our astonishment, by the
same post, the volunteers found themselves accepted, and the gentlemen
they recommended for their officers gazetted; the which, as I tell
frankly, was an admonition to me, that the peremptory will of authority
was no longer sufficient for the rule of mankind; and, therefore, I
squared my after conduct more by a deference to public opinion, than by
any laid down maxims and principles of my own; the consequence of which
was, that my influence still continued to grow and gather strength in the
community, and I was enabled to accomplish many things that my
predecessors would have thought it was almost beyond the compass of man
to undertake.

CHAPTER XXIX--CAPTAIN ARMOUR

In the course of these notandums, I have, here and there, touched on
divers matters that did not actually pertain to my own magisterial life,
further than as showing the temper and spirit in which different things
were brought to a bearing; and, in the same way, I will now again step
aside from the regular course of public affairs, to record an occurrence
which, at the time, excited no small wonderment and sympathy, and in
which it was confessed by many that I performed a very judicious part.
The event here spoken of, was the quartering in the town, after the
removal of that well-behaved regiment, the Argyle fencibles, the main
part of another, the name and number of which I do not now recollect; but
it was an English corps, and, like the other troops of that nation, was
not then brought into the sobriety of discipline to which the whole
British army has since been reduced, by the paternal perseverance of his
Royal Highness the Duke of York; so that, after the douce and respectful
Highlanders, we sorely felt the consequences of the outstropolous and
galravitching Englishers, who thought it no disgrace to fill themselves
as fou as pipers, and fight in the streets, and march to the church on
the Lord's day with their band of music. However, after the first
Sunday, upon a remonstrance on the immorality of such irreligious
bravery, Colonel Cavendish, the commandant, silenced the musicians.

Among the officers, there was one Captain Armour, an extraordinar well
demeaned, handsome m