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 some passages of the Latin classics very pertinently; though his employment in life, and the various turns which his mind took under different impulses in succeeding years, prevented him from cultivating such studies.

The good effects of his mother’s prudent and exemplary care were not so conspicuous as she wished and hoped, in the earlier part of her son’s life; yet there is great reason to believe they were not entirely lost.  As they were probably the occasion of many convictions which in his younger years were overborne, so I doubt not, that when religious impressions took that strong hold of his heart which they afterwards did, that stock of knowledge which had been so early laid up in his mind, was found of considerable service.  And I have heard them make the observation, as an encouragement to parents, and other pious friends, to do their duty, and to hope for those good consequences of it which may not immediately appear.

Could his mother, or a very religious aunt, (of whose good instructions and exhortations I have often heard him speak with pleasure,) have prevailed, he would not have thought of a military life, from which it is no wonder these ladies endeavoured to dissuade him, considering the mournful experience they had of the dangers attending it, and the dear relatives they had lost already by it.  But it suited his taste; and the ardour of his spirit, animated by the persuasions of a friend who greatly urged it,[*] was not to be restrained.  Nor will the reader wonder that, thus excited and supported, it easily overbore their tender remonstrances, when he knows that this lively youth fought three duels before he attained to the stature of a man; in one of which, when he was but eight years old, he received from a boy much older than himself, a wound in his right cheek, the scar of which was always very apparent.  The false sense of honour which instigated him to it, might seem indeed something excusable in those unripened years, and considering the profession of his father, brother, and uncle; but I have often heard him mention this rashness with that regret which the reflection would naturally give to so wise and good a man in the maturity of life.  And I have been informed that, after his remarkable conversion, he declined accepting a challenge, with this calm and truly great reply, which, in a man of his experienced bravery, was exceedingly graceful:  “I fear sinning, though you know I do not fear fighting.”

[Note:  I suppose this to have been Brigadier-General Rue, who had from his childhood a peculiar affection for him.]