rheumatic fever I was
more abstemious in my manner of living, though when in company I never
subjected myself to any great restraint. In the year 1774 I had quitted
the army, and being in a more retired situation, was seldom led into
any excess; in 1776 and 1777 I was in the habit of drinking a good deal
of wine very frequently, though not constantly. After that period till
the year 1781, I drank a larger quantity of wine regularly, but very
seldom to any degree of intoxication. I lived much at that time in the
society of some gentlemen, who usually drank nearly a bottle of wine
daily after dinner. I must here however observe, that at no part of my
life was I accustomed to drink wine in an evening, and very seldom
drank any thing more than a single half-pint glass of some sort of
spirits diluted with much water. Till the year 1781 I had always been
accustomed to use very violent and continued exercise on horseback; in
the winter months I pursued all field diversions, and in the summer
months I rode frequent and long journeys; and with this exercise was
liable to perspire to great excess; besides which I was subject to very
profuse night-sweats, and had frequently boils break out all over me,
especially in the spring and autumn; for which I took no medicine,
except a little flour of sulphur with cream of tartar in honey.

"You will observe I bring every thing down to the date of 1781. In the
month of October in that year, when I was just entered into the
thirty-second year of my age, I had the first attack of gout; that fit
was very severe, and of many weeks continuance. I now determined upon a
more abstemious method of living, in respect to wine; and indeed the
society, in which I had before been accustomed to live, being
considerably changed, I had less frequent temptations to excess. From
this time I enjoyed the most perfect good state of health till August
1784, when I had my second attack of gout. I never perfectly recovered
from this attack through the succeeding winter, and in March 1785 was
advised to try the Bath waters, and drank them under the direction of
one of the faculty of that place. I was there soon seized with a fever,
and a slight attack of gout in one knee. I should observe, that when I
set out from home, I was in a weak and low state, and unequal to much
fatigue; as a