mpaign. He had
a company in the regiment of foot once commanded by Colonel Hodge, his
valiant brother-in-law, who was slain at the head of that regiment (my
memorial from Scotland says) at the battle of Steenkirk, which was fought
in the year 1692.

[*Transcriber's Note: Mrs. (Mistress), in that age, was the normal style
of address for an unmarried daughter from a prominent family, as well as
for a married lady.]

Mrs. Gardiner, our colonel's mother, was a lady of very respectable
character; but it pleased God to exercise her with very uncommon trials;
for she not only lost her husband and her brother in the service of their
country, as before related, but also her eldest son, Mr. Robert Gardiner,
on the day which completed the 16th year of his age, at the siege of
Namur, in 1695. But there is great reason to believe that God blessed
these various and heavy afflictions, as the means of forming her to that
eminent degree of piety which will render her memory honourable as long
as it continues.

Her second son, the worthy person of whom I am now to give a more
particular account, was born at Carriden, in Linlithgowshire, on the 10th
of January, A.D. 1687-8,--the memorable year of that glorious revolution
which he justly esteemed among the happiest of all events; so that when
he was slain in defence of those liberties which God then, by so gracious
a providence, rescued from utter destruction, i.e. on the 21st of
September 1745, he was aged 57 years, 8 months, and 11 days.

The annual return of his birth-day was observed by him in the latter
and better years of his life, in a manner very different from what is
commonly practised; for, instead of making it a day of festivity, I
am told he rather distinguished it as a season of more than ordinary
humiliation before God--both in commemoration of those mercies which he
received in the first opening of life, and under an affectionate sense,
as well of his long alienation from the great Author and support of his
being, as of the many imperfections which he lamented in the best of his
days and services.

I have not met with many things remarkable concerning the early days of
his life, only that his mother took care to instruct him, with great
tenderness and affection, in the principles of true Christianity. He was
also trained up in humane literature, at the school at Linlithgow, where
he made a very considerable progress in the languages. I remember to have
heard him quote