ith submission
and attention as it can only be intended for your benefit in order to
give you a valuable character which of all things is the greatest
blessing both for this world and the next; besides you must consider
that you are never to indulge yourselves in any sort of indolence or
laziness but to rise early in the morning to be the more able to fulfil
your Duty.... As to you, Jack, I expect to see you a Gallant and
honourable fellow that will always scorn to tell the least lie in your
life. It was well done to answer Captain Fraser [Malcolm Fraser, a
Lieutenant in 1762, is still only a Captain in 1791!] with which he was
well pleased.... Both of you have I think improved in your writing which
gives me pleasure." He adds regretfully to Christine: "I cannot send you
a muff this year but perhaps I may do so next year." The letter closes
with a modest list of purchases to be sent out from Edinburgh for
Malbaie: "one piece of Calico for two gowns; one piece of calico for
children; three pieces of linen (for shirts), two of which coarse and
the other a little finer; one yard of cambrick; five yards of muslin
(for caps and Handkerchiefs); six yards of lace (for caps); twelve yards
of different ribbons, three pairs of worsted stockings and three pairs
of cotton stockings for myself."

Jack was to follow a military career, and he entered the army when a
youth of sixteen or seventeen. His first active service was in the West
Indies, after war with revolutionary France broke out, and the dangers
of that climate gave his father some anxiety; all will be well, he
hopes, if Jack continues to take a certain "powder of the Jesuits'
Bark"; above all "the best rules are temperance and sobriety"; then "the
same gracious Power who protected me in many dangers through the course
of three Wars will also vouchsafe protection to you through this one."
In 1795, when Jack was only eighteen, his corps was back in England
and, through the influence of a distant relative, General Graeme, with
the Duke of York, Commander in Chief of the Army and all powerful in
days when promotion went avowedly by favour and purchase rather than by
merit, Jack secured a Lieutenancy in the 19th Regiment. His father was
delighted: "I wish you much joy with all my heart of your quick rise in
being at your age already a Lieutenant in an old Regiment whereas I was
past twenty-six years of age before I obtained a Lieutenancy in the
British service and that only in