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 captain-lieutenant 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 aid-de-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.

As I am now speaking of so many of his military preferments, I will
dispatch the account of them by observing, that, on the 24th January
1729-30, he was advanced to the rank of lieutenant-colonel in the same
regiment, long under the command of Lord Cadogan, with whose friendship
this brave and vigilant officer was also honoured for many years. And he
continued in this rank and regiment till the 19th of April, 1743, when
he received a colonel's commission over a regiment of dragoons lately
commanded by Brigadier Bland, at the head of which he valiantly fell, in
the defence of his sovereign and his country, about two years and a half
after he received it.

We will now return to that period of his life which was passed at Paris,
the scene of such remarkable and important events. He continued (if I
remember right) several years under t