Page:Most remarkable passages in the life of the honourable Colonel James Gardiner.pdf/20

 He earnestly pressed it on the commanding officer, both as the soldiers were then in better spirits than it could be supposed they would be after having passed the night under arms; and also as the circumstances of making an attack would be some encouragement to them, and probably some terror to the enemy, who would have had the disadvantage of standing on the defence: a disadvantage with which those wild barbarians (for such most of them were) perhaps would have been more struck than better disciplined troops, especially when they fought against the laws of their country too. He also apprehended, that by marching to meet them, some advantage might have been secured with regard to the ground; with which, it is natural to imagine, he must have been perfectly acquainted, as it lay just at his own door, and he had rode over it so many hundred times. When I do mention these things, I do not pretend to be capable of judging how far this advice was on the whole right. A variety of circumstances, to me unknown, might make it otherwise. It is certain, however, that it was brave. But it was over-ruled in this respect, as it also was in the disposition of the cannon, which he would have bad planted in the centre of our small army, rather than just before his regiment, which was in the right wing; where he was apprehensive that the horses, which had not been in any engagement before, might be thrown into some disorder by the discharge so very near them. He urged this the more, as he thought the attack of the rebels might probably be made on the centre of the foot, where he knew there were some brave men, whose standing he thought, under God; the success of the day depended. When he found that he could not carry any of these points, nor me others, which, out of regard to the common safety, he insisted upon with some unusual earnestness, he dropped some