That his remarkable care to maintain good discipline among them (of which we shall afterwards speak) might be the more effectual, he made himself on all proper occasions accessible to them, and expressed a great concern for their interests, which, being genuine and sincere, naturally discovered itself in a variety of instances.  I remember I had once occasion to visit one of his dragoons in his last illness at Harborough, and I found the man upon the borders of eternity—­a circumstance which, as he apprehended himself, must add some peculiar weight and credibility to his discourse.  He then told me, in his colonel’s absence, that he questioned not that he should have everlasting reason to bless God on Colonel Gardiner’s account, for he had been a father to him in all his interests, both temporal and spiritual.  He added, that he had visited him, almost every day during his illness, with religious advice and instruction, and had also taken care that he should want for nothing that might conduct to the recovery of his health.  He did not speak of this as the result of any particular attachment to him, but as the manner in which he was accustomed to treat those under his command.  It is no wonder that this engaged their affection to a very great degree; and I doubt not that if he had fought the fatal battle of Prestonpans at the head of that gallant regiment of which he had the care for so many years, and which is allowed by most unexceptionable judges to be one of the finest in the British service, and consequently in the world, he had been supported in a much different manner, and had found a much greater number who would have rejoiced in an opportunity of making their own breasts a barrier in the defence of his.

It could not but greatly endear him to his soldiers, that so far as preferments lay in his power, or were under his influence, they were distributed according to merit.  This he knew to be as much the dictate of prudence as equity.  I find from one of his letters before me, dated but a few months after his conversion, that he was solicited to use his interest with the Earl of Stair in favour of one whom he judged a very worthy person; and that it had been suggested by another, who recommended him, that if he so succeeded, he might expect some handsome acknowledgment.  But he answers with some degree of indignation, “Do you imagine I am to be bribed to do justice?” For such it seems he esteemed it, to confer the favour which was asked from him on one so deserving.  Nothing can more effectually tend to humble the enemies of a state, than that such maxims should universally prevail in it; and if they do not prevail, the worthiest men in an army or a fleet may sink under repeated discouragements, and the basest exalted, to the infamy of the public, and perhaps to its ruin.