CHAPTER II.

Battle of ramillies.

He served first as a cadet, which must have been very early; and then, at fourteen years old, he bore an ensign’s commission in a Scotch regiment in the Dutch service, in which he continued till the year 1702, when (if my information be right) he received an ensign’s commission from queen Anne, which he bore in the battle of Ramillies, being then in the nineteenth year of his age.  In this ever-memorable action he received a wound in his mouth by a musket-ball, which has often been reported to be the occasion of his conversion.  That report was a mistaken one; but as some very remarkable circumstances attended this affair, which I have had the pleasure of hearing more than once from his own mouth, I hope my readers will excuse me, if I give him so uncommon a story at large.

Our young officer was of a party in the forlorn hope, and was commanded on what seemed almost a desperate service, to dispossess the French of the church-yard at Ramillies, where a considerable number of them were posted to remarkable advantage.  They succeeded much better than was expected; and it may well be supposed that Mr. Gardiner, who had before been in several encounters, and had the view of making his fortune to animate the natural intrepidity of his spirit, was glad of such an opportunity of signalizing himself.  Accordingly he had planted his colours on an advanced ground; and while he was calling to his men, (probably in that horrid language which is so peculiar a disgrace to our soldiery, and so absurdly common on such occasions of extreme danger,) he received into his mouth a shot, which, without beating out of any of his teeth, or touching the fore part of his tongue, went through his neck, and came out about an inch and a half on the left side of the vertebrae.  Not feeling at first the pain of the stroke, he wondered what was become of the ball, and in the wildness of his surprise began to suspect he had swallowed it; but falling soon after, he traced the passage of it by his finger, when he could discover it in no other way; which I mention as one circumstance, among many which occur, to make it probable that the greater part of those who fall in battle by these instruments of death, feel very little anguish from the most mortal wounds.

This accident happened about five or six in the evening, on the 23d of May, 1706; and the army, pursuing its advantages against the French, without ever regarding the wounded, (which was, it seems, the Duke of Marlborough’s constant method,) our young officer lay all night on the field, agitated, as may well be supposed, with a great variety of thoughts.  He assured me, that when he reflected upon the circumstance of his wound, that a ball should, as he then conceived it, go through his head without killing him, he thought God had preserved him by a miracle; and therefore assuredly concluded