Page:Most remarkable passages in the life of the honourable Colonel James Gardiner.pdf/12

 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 passed at Paris, the scene of such remarkable and important events. He continued (if I remember right) several years under the roof of the brave and generous Earl of Stair, to whom he endeavoured to approve himself by every instance of diligent and faithful service: And his Lordship gave no inconsiderable proof of the dependence which he had upon him, when, in the beginning of the year 1715, he intrusted him with the important dispatches relating to a discovery which, by a series of admirable policy, he had made of a design which the French king was then forming for invading Great Britain, in favour of the Pretender; in which the French apprehended they were so sure of success, that it seemed a point of friendship in one of the chief counsellors of that court, to dissuade a dependent of his from accepting some employment under his Britannic Majesty, when proposed by his envoy there, because it was said, that in less than six weeks there would be a revolution in favour of what they called the family of the Stuarts. The Captain dispatched his journey with the utmost speed; a variety of circumstances happily occurred to accelerate it, and they who remember How soon the regiments which that emergency required were raised and armed, will, I doubt not, esteem it a memorable instance both of the most cordial zeal in the friends of the government, and of the gracious care of divine providence over the house of Hanover and the British liberties, so incomparably connected with s interest.