In the midst of all the gentleness which Colonel Gardiner exercised towards his soldiers, he made it very apparent that he knew how to reconcile the tenderness of a really faithful and condescending friend with the authority of a commander.  Perhaps hardly any thing conduced more generally to the maintaining of this authority, than the strict decorum and good manners with which he treated even the private gentlemen of his regiment; which has always a great efficacy in keeping inferiors at a proper distance, and forbids, in the least offensive manner, familiarities which degrade the superior, and enervate his influence.  The calmness and steadiness of his behaviour on all occasions also greatly tended to the same purpose.  He knew how mean a man looks in the transports of passion, and would not use so much freedom with many of his men as to fall into such transports before them, well knowing that persons in the lowest rank of life are aware how unfit they are to govern others, who cannot govern themselves.  He was also sensible how necessary it is in all who preside over others, and especially in military officers, to check irregularities when they first begin to appear; and, that he might be able to do so, he kept a strict inspection over his soldiers; in which it was observed, that as he generally chose to reside among them as much as he could, (though in circumstances which sometimes occasioned him to deny himself in some interests which were very dear to him,) so, when they were around him, he seldom staid long in a place; but was frequently walking the streets, and looking into their quarters and stables, as well as reviewing and exercising them himself.  It has often been observed that the regiment to which he was so many years lieutenant-colonel, was one of the most regular and orderly regiments in the public service, so that perhaps none of our dragoons were more welcome to the towns where their character was known.  Yet no such bodies of men are so blameless in their conduct but something will be found, especially among such considerable numbers, worthy of censure, and sometimes of punishment.  This Colonel Gardiner knew how to inflict with a becoming resolution, and with all the severity which he judged necessary—­a severity the more awful and impressive, as it was already attended with meekness; for he well knew that when things are done in a passion, it seems only an accidental circumstance that they are acts of justice, and that such indecencies greatly obstruct the ends of punishment, both as to reforming offenders, and to deterring others from an imitation of their faults.