The education which I had received, and which placed me far above the common run of society in the colonies, induced me to seek for a companion whose mind had received equal cultivation; and such a one I found in Charles ——­, a young lieutenant in the ——­ regiment, quartered at Nassau.  Our intimacy became the closer, in proportion as we discovered the sottish habits and ignorance of those around us.  We usually spent our mornings in reading the classic authors with which we were both familiar; we spouted our Latin verses; we fenced; and we amused ourselves, occasionally, with a game of billiards, but never ventured our friendship on a stake for money.  When the heat of the day had passed off, we strolled out, paid a few visits, or rambled over the island; keeping as much aloof from the barracks as possible, where the manner of living was so very uncongenial to our notions.  The officers began their day about noon, when they sat down to breakfast; after that, they separated to their different quarters, to read the novels, with which the presses of England and France inundated these islands, to the great deterioration of morals.  These books, which they read lounging on their backs, or laid beside them and fell asleep over, occupied the hottest part of the day; the remainder, till the hour of dinner arrived, was consumed in visiting and gossiping, or in riding to procure an appetite for dinner.  Till four in the morning, their time was wholly devoted to smoking and drinking; their beds received them in a state of intoxication more or less; parade, at nine o’clock, forced them out with a burning brain and parched tongue; they rushed into the sea, and found some refreshment in the cool water, which enabled them to stand upright in front of their men; the formal duty over, they retired again to their beds, where they lay till noon, and then to breakfast.

Such were their days; can it be wondered at that our islands are fatal to the constitution of Europeans, when this is their manner of life in a climate always disposed to take advantage of any excess?  The men too readily followed the example of their officers, and died off in the same rapid manner; one of the most regular employments of the morning was to dig graves for the victims of the night.  Four or five of these receptacles was thought a moderate number.  Such was the fatal apathy in which these officers existed, that the approach, nay; even the certainty of death, gave them no apparent concern, caused no preparation, excited no serious reflection.  They followed the corpse of a brother-officer to the grave in military procession.  These ceremonies were always conducted in the evening, and often have I seen these thoughtless young men throwing stones at the lanthorns which were carried before them to light them to the burying-ground.