The Life of Col. James Gardiner Part 1

The Life of Col. James Gardiner.

by P. Doddridge.

CHAPTER I.

PARENTAGE AND EARLY DAYS.

When I promised the public some larger account of the life and character of this ill.u.s.trious person, than I could conveniently insert in my sermon on the sad occasion of his death, I was secure, that if Providence continued my capacity of writing, I should not wholly disappoint the expectation; for I was furnished with a variety of particulars which appeared to me worthy of general notice, in consequence of that intimate friendship with which he had honoured me during the last six years of his life--a friendship which led him to open his heart to me, in repeated conversations, with an unbounded confidence, (as he then a.s.sured me, beyond what he had used with any other man living,) so far as religious experiences were concerned; and I had also received several very valuable letters from him during the time of our absence from each other, which contained most genuine and edifying traces of his Christian character.

But I hoped further to learn many valuable particulars from the papers of his own closet, and from his letters to other friends, as well as from what they more circ.u.mstantially knew concerning him. I therefore determined to delay the execution of my promise till I could enjoy these advantages for performing it in the most satisfactory manner; nor have I, on the whole, reason to regret that determination.

I shall not trouble the reader with all the causes which concurred to r.e.t.a.r.d these expected a.s.sistances for almost a whole year. The chief of them was the tedious languishing illness of his afflicted lady, through whose hands it was proper the papers should pa.s.s; together with the confusion into which the rebels had thrown them when they ransacked his seat at Bankton, where most of them were deposited. But having now received such of them as have escaped their rapacious hands, and could conveniently be collected and transmitted, I set myself with the greatest pleasure to perform what I esteem not merely a tribute of grat.i.tude to the memory of my invaluable friend, (though never was the memory of any mortal man more precious and sacred to me,) but of duty to G.o.d, and to my fellow-creatures; for I have a most cheerful hope that the narrative I am now to write will, under the divine blessing, be a means of spreading, what of all things in the world, every benevolent heart will most desire to spread, a warm and lively sense of religion.

My own heart has been so much edified and animated by what I have read in the memoirs of persons who have been eminent for wisdom and piety, that I cannot but wish the treasure may be more and more increased; and I would hope the world may gather the like valuable fruits from the life I am now attempting, not only as it will contain very singular circ.u.mstances, which may excite general curiosity, but as it comes attended with some other particular advantages.

The reader is here to survey a character of such eminent and various goodness as might demand veneration, and inspire him with a desire of imitating it too, had it appeared in the obscurest rank; but it will surely command some peculiar regard, when viewed in so elevated and important a station, especially as it shone, not in ecclesiastical, but _military_ life, where the temptations are so many, and the prevalence of the contrary character so great, that it may seem no inconsiderable praise and felicity to be free from dissolute vice, and to retain what in most other professions might be esteemed only _a mediocrity of virtue_.

It may surely, with the highest justice, be expected that the t.i.tle and bravery of Colonel Gardiner will invite many of our officers and soldiers, to whom his name has been long honourable and dear, to peruse this account of him with some peculiar attention; in consequence of which it may be a means of increasing the number, and brightening the character of those who are already adorning their office, their country, and their religion; and of reclaiming those who will see what they ought to be, rather than what they are. On the whole, to the gentlemen of the sword I would particularly offer these memoirs, as theirs by so distinguished a t.i.tle; yet I am firmly persuaded there are _none_ whose office is so sacred, or whose proficiency in the religious life is so advanced, but they may find something to demand their thankfulness, and to awaken their emulation.

COLONEL JAMES GARDINER was the son of Capt. Patrick Gardiner of the family of Torwoodhead, by Mrs.[*] Mary Hodge of the family of Gladsmuir.

The captain, who was master of a handsome estate, served many years in the army of king William and queen Anne, and died abroad with the British forces in Germany, soon after the battle of Hochstett, through the fatigues he underwent in the duties of that celebrated campaign. He had a company in the regiment of foot once commanded by Colonel Hodge, his valiant brother-in-law, who was slain at the head of that regiment (my memorial from Scotland says) at the battle of Steenkirk, which was fought in the year 1692.

[*Transcriber's Note: Mrs. (Mistress), in that age, was the normal style of address for an unmarried daughter from a prominent family, as well as for a married lady.]

Mrs. Gardiner, our colonel's mother, was a lady of very respectable character; but it pleased G.o.d to exercise her with very uncommon trials; for she not only lost her husband and her brother in the service of their country, as before related, but also her eldest son, Mr. Robert Gardiner, on the day which completed the 16th year of his age, at the siege of Namur, in 1695. But there is great reason to believe that G.o.d blessed these various and heavy afflictions, as the means of forming her to that eminent degree of piety which will render her memory honourable as long as it continues.

Her second son, the worthy person of whom I am now to give a more particular account, was born at Carriden, in Linlithgowshire, on the 10th of January, A.D. 1687-8,--the memorable year of that glorious revolution which he justly esteemed among the happiest of all events; so that when he was slain in defence of those liberties which G.o.d then, by so gracious a providence, rescued from utter destruction, i.e. on the 21st of September 1745, he was aged 57 years, 8 months, and 11 days.

The annual return of his birth-day was observed by him in the latter and better years of his life, in a manner very different from what is commonly practised; for, instead of making it a day of festivity, I am told he rather distinguished it as a season of more than ordinary humiliation before G.o.d--both in commemoration of those mercies which he received in the first opening of life, and under an affectionate sense, as well of his long alienation from the great Author and support of his being, as of the many imperfections which he lamented in the best of his days and services.

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 pa.s.sages of the Latin cla.s.sics 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.]

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 circ.u.mstances 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 pa.s.sage of it by his finger, when he could discover it in no other way; which I mention as one circ.u.mstance, 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 a.s.sured me, that when he reflected upon the circ.u.mstance of his wound, that a ball should, as he then conceived it, go through his head without killing him, he thought G.o.d had preserved him by a miracle; and therefore a.s.suredly concluded that he should live, abandoned and desperate as his state seemed to be. Yet (which to me appeared very astonishing) he had little thoughts of humbling himself before G.o.d, and returning to him after the wanderings of a life so licentiously begun.

But, expecting to recover, his mind was taken up with contrivances to secure his gold, of which he had a good deal about him; and he had recourse to a very odd expedient, which proved successful. Expecting to be stripped, he first took out a handful of that clotted gore of which he was frequently obliged to clear his mouth, or he would have been choked; and putting it into his left hand, he took out his money, which I think was about 19 pistoles, and shutting his hand, and besmearing the back part of it with blood, he kept in this position till the blood dried in such a manner that his hand could not easily fall open, though any sudden surprise should happen, in which he might lose the presence of mind which that concealment otherwise would have required.

In the morning the French, who were masters of that spot, though their forces were defeated at some distance, came to plunder the slain; and seeing him to appearance almost expiring, one of them was just applying a sword to his breast, to destroy the little remainder of life, when, in the critical moment, upon which all the extraordinary events of such a life as his afterwards proved, were suspended, a Cordelier who attended the plunderers interposed, (taking him by his dress for a Frenchman) and said, "Do not kill that poor child." Our young soldier heard all that pa.s.sed, though he was not able to speak one word; and, opening his eyes, made a sign for something to drink. They gave him a sup of some spirituous liquor which happened to be at hand, by which he said he found a more sensible refreshment than he could remember from anything he had tasted either before or since. Then signifying to the friar to lean down his ear to his mouth, he employed the first efforts of his feeble breath in telling him (what, alas! was a contrived falsehood) that he was a nephew to the governor of Huy, a neutral town in the neighbourhood; and that if he could take any method of conveying him thither, he did not doubt but his uncle would liberally reward him. He had indeed a friend at Huy, who I think was governor, and, if I mistake not, had been acquainted with the captain, his father, from whom he expected a kind reception; but the relation was only pretended. On hearing this, they laid him on a sort of hand-barrow, and sent him by a file of musqueteers towards the place; but the men lost their way, and, towards the evening, got into a wood in which they were obliged to continue all night. The poor patient's wound being still undressed, it is not to be wondered at that by this time it raged violently. The anguish of it engaged him earnestly to beg that they would either kill him outright, or leave him there to die without the torture of any further motion; and indeed they were obliged to rest for a considerable time, on account of their own weariness. Thus he spent the second night in the open air, without any thing more than a common bandage to staunch the blood. He has often mentioned it as a most astonishing providence that he did not bleed to death, which, under G.o.d, he ascribed to the remarkable coldness of these two nights.

Judging it quite unsafe to attempt carrying him to Huy, from whence they were now several miles distant, his convoy took him early in the morning to a convent in the neighbourhood, where he was hospitably received, and treated with great kindness and tenderness. But the cure of his wound was committed to an ignorant barber-surgeon who lived near the house, the best shift that could then be made, at a time when it may easily be supposed persons of ability in their profession had their hands full of employment. The tent which this artist applied, was almost like a peg driven into the wound; and gentlemen of skill and experience, when they came to hear of the manner in which he was treated, wondered how he could possibly survive such management. But by the blessing of G.o.d on these applications, rough as they were, he recovered in a few months. The Lady Abbess, who called him her son, treated him with the affection and care of a mother; and he always declared that every thing which he saw within these walls, was conducted with the strictest decency and decorum. He received a great many devout admonitions from the ladies there, and they would fain have persuaded him to acknowledge what they thought so miraculous a deliverance, by embracing the _Catholic faith_, as they were pleased to call it. But they could not succeed; for though no religion lay near his heart, yet he had too much of the spirit of a gentleman lightly to change that form of religion which he wore, as it were loose about him; as well as too much good sense to swallow those monstrous absurdities of Popery which immediately presented themselves to him, unacquainted as he was with the niceties of the controversy.

CHAPTER III.

MILITARY PREFERMENTS.

When his liberty was regained by an exchange of prisoners, and his health thoroughly established, he was far from rendering unto the Lord according to that wonderful display of divine mercy which he had experienced.

I know very little of the particulars of those wild, thoughtless and wretched years which lay between the 19th and 30th of his life; except that he frequently experienced the divine goodness in renewed instances, particularly in preserving him in several hot military actions, in all which he never received so much as a wound after this, forward as he was in tempting danger; and yet that all these years were spent in an entire alienation from G.o.d, and in an eager pursuit of animal pleasure as his supreme good. The series of criminal amours in which he was almost incessantly engaged during this time, must probably have afforded some remarkable adventures and occurrences; but the memory of them has perished. Nor do I think it unworthy of notice here, that amidst all the intimacy of our friendship, and the many hours of cheerful as well as serious converse which we spent together, I never remember to have heard him speak of any of these intrigues, otherwise than in the general with deep and solemn abhorrence. This I the rather mention, as it seemed a most genuine proof of his unfeigned repentance, which I think there is great reason to suspect, when people seem to take a pleasure in relating and describing scenes of vicious indulgence, which they yet profess to have disapproved and forsaken.

Amidst all these pernicious wanderings from the paths of religion, virtue, and happiness, he approved himself so well in his military character, that he was made a lieutenant in that year, viz. 1706; and I am told he was very quickly after promoted to a cornet's commission in Lord Stair's regiment of the Scots Greys, and, on the 31st of January, 1714-15, was made captain-lieutenant in Colonel Ker's regiment of dragoons. He had the honour of being known to the Earl of Stair some time before, and was made his aid-de-camp; and when, upon his Lordship's being appointed amba.s.sador from his late Majesty to the court of France, he made so splendid an entrance into Paris, Captain Gardiner was his master of the horse; and I have been told that a great deal of the care of that admirably well-adjusted ceremony fell upon him; so that he gained great credit by the manner in which he conducted it. Under the benign influence of his Lordship's favour, which to the last day of his life he retained, a captain's commission was procured for him, dated July 22, 1715, in the regiment of dragoons commanded by Colonel Stanhope, now Earl of Harrington; and in 1717 he was advanced to the majority of that regiment, in which office he continued till it was reduced on November 10, 1718, when he was put out of commission. But when his Majesty, king George I., was thoroughly apprised of his faithful and important services, he gave him his sign-manual, ent.i.tling him to the first majority that should become vacant in any regiment of horse or dragoons, which happened, about five years after, to be in Croft's regiment of dragoons, in which he received a commission, dated 1st June, 1724; and on the 20th of July the same year, he was made major of an older regiment, commanded by the Earl of Stair.

As I am now speaking of so many of his military preferments, I will dispatch the account of them by observing, that, on the 24th January 1729-30, he was advanced to the rank of lieutenant-colonel in the same regiment, long under the command of Lord Cadogan, with whose friendship this brave and vigilant officer was also honoured for many years. And he continued in this rank and regiment till the 19th of April, 1743, when he received a colonel's commission over a regiment of dragoons lately commanded by Brigadier Bland, at the head of which he valiantly fell, in the defence of his sovereign and his country, about two years and a half after he received it.

We will now return to that period of his life which was pa.s.sed at Paris, the scene of such remarkable and important events. He continued (if I remember right) several years under the roof of the brave and generous Earl of Stair, to whom he endeavoured to approve himself by every instance of diligent and faithful service. And his Lordship gave no inconsiderable proof of the dependence which he had upon him, when, in the beginning of 1715, he entrusted him with the important dispatches relating to a discovery which, by a series of admirable policy, he had made of a design which the French king was then forming for invading Great Britain in favour of the Pretender; in which the French apprehended they were so sure of success, that it seemed a point of friendship in one of the chief counsellors of that court to dissuade a dependent of his from accepting some employment under his Britannic majesty, when proposed by his envoy there, because it was said that in less than six weeks there would be a revolution in favour of what they called the family of the Stuarts. The captain dispatched his journey with the utmost speed; a variety of circ.u.mstances happily concurred to accelerate it; and they who remember how soon the regiments which that emergency required, were raised and armed, will, I doubt not, esteem it a memorable instance, both of the most cordial zeal in the friends of the government, and of the gracious care of Divine Providence over the house of Hanover and the British liberties, so inseparably connected with its interest.

While Captain Gardiner was at London, in one of the journeys he made upon this occasion, he, with that frankness which was natural to him, and which in those days was not always under the most prudent restraint, ventured to predict, from what he knew of the bad state of the French king's health, that he would not live six weeks. This was made known by some spies who were at St. James's, and came to be reported at the court of Versailles; for he received letters from some friends at Paris, advising him not to return thither, unless he could reconcile himself to a lodging in the Bastile. But he was soon free from that apprehension; for, if I mistake not, before half that time was accomplished, Louis XIV.

died, (Sept. 1, 1715,) and it is generally thought his death was hastened by a very accidental circ.u.mstance, which had some reference to the captain's prophecy; for the last time he ever dined in public, which was a very little while after the report of it had been made there, he happened to discover our British envoy among the spectators. The penetration of this ill.u.s.trious person was too great, and his attachment to the interest of his royal master too well known, not to render him very disagreeable to that crafty and tyrannical prince, whom G.o.d had so long suffered to be the disgrace of monarchy, and the scourge of Europe.

He at first appeared very languid, as indeed he was; but on casting his eye upon the Earl of Stair, he affected to appear before him in a much better state of health than he really was; and therefore, as if he had been awakened on a sudden from some deep reverie, he immediately put himself into an erect posture, called up a laboured vivacity into his countenance, and ate much more heartily than was by any means advisable, repeating two or three times to a n.o.bleman, (I think the Duke of Bourbon) then in waiting, "_Il me semble que je ne mange pas mal pour un homme qui devoit mourir si tot._" "Methinks I eat very well for a man who is to die so soon." But this inroad upon that regularity of living which he had for some time observed, agreed so ill with him that he never recovered this meal, but died in less than a fortnight. This gave occasion for some humorous people to say, that old Louis, after all, was killed by a Briton. But if this story be true, (which I think there can be no room to doubt, as the colonel, from whom I have often heard it, though absent, could scarce be misinformed,) it might more properly be said that he fell by his own vanity; in which view I thought it so remarkable, as not to be unworthy of a place in these memoirs.

The captain quickly returned, and continued, with small interruptions, at Paris, at least till 1720, and how much longer I do not certainly know.

The Earl's favour and generosity made him easy in his affairs, though he was, (as has been observed before,) part of the time, out of commission, by breaking the regiment to which he belonged, of which before he was major. This was in all probability the gayest part of his life, and the most criminal. Whatever wise and good examples he might find in the family where he had the honour to reside, it is certain that the French court, during the regency of the Duke of Orleans, was one of the most dissolute under heaven. What, by a wretched abuse of language, have been called intrigues of love and gallantry, were so entirely to the major's then degenerate taste, that if not the whole business, at least the whole happiness of his life, consisted in them; and he had now too much leisure for one who was so p.r.o.ne to abuse it. His fine const.i.tution, than which perhaps there was hardly ever a better, gave him great opportunities of indulging himself in these excesses; and his good spirits enabled him to pursue his pleasures of every kind in so alert and sprightly a manner, that mult.i.tudes envied him, and called him, by a dreadful kind of compliment, "the happy rake."

CHAPTER IV.

CHECKS OF CONSCIENCE.

Yet still the checks of conscience, and some remaining principles of so good an education, would break in upon his most licentious hours; and I particularly remember he told me, that when some of his dissolute companions were once congratulating him on his distinguished felicity, a dog happening at that time to come into the room, he could not forbear groaning inwardly, and saying to himself, 'Oh that I were that dog!' Such then was his happiness; and such perhaps is that of hundreds more who bear themselves highest in the contempt of religion, and glory in that infamous servitude which they affect to call liberty. But these remonstrances of reason and conscience were in vain; and, in short, he carried things so far in this wretched part of his life, that I am well a.s.sured some sober English gentlemen, who made no great pretences to religion, how agreeable soever he might have been to them on other accounts, rather declined than sought his company, as fearing they might have been ensnared and corrupted by it.

Yet I cannot find that in these most abandoned days he was fond of drinking. Indeed, he never had any natural relish for that kind of intemperance, from which he used to think a manly pride might be sufficient to preserve persons of sense and spirit; as by it they give up every thing that distinguishes them from the meanest of their species, or indeed from animals the most below it. So that if ever he fell into any excesses of this kind, it was merely out of complaisance to his company, and that he might not appear stiff and singular. His frank, obliging, and generous temper procured him many friends; and these principles, which rendered him amiable to others, not being under the direction of true wisdom and piety, sometimes made him, in the ways of living he pursued, more uneasy to himself than he might, perhaps, have been, if he could have entirely overcome them; especially as he never was a sceptic in his principles, but still retained a secret apprehension that natural and revealed religion, though he did not much care to think of either, were founded in truth. And, with this conviction, his notorious violations of the most essential precepts of both could not but occasion some secret misgivings of heart. His continual neglect of the great Author of his being, of whose perfections he could not doubt, and to whom he knew himself to be under daily and perpetual obligations, gave him, in some moments of involuntary reflection, inexpressible remorse; and this at times wrought upon him to such a degree, that he resolved he would attempt to pay him some acknowledgments. Accordingly, for a few mornings he did it, repeating in retirement some pa.s.sages out of the Psalms, and perhaps other scriptures which he still retained in his memory; and owning, in a few strong words, the many mercies and deliverances he had received, and the ill returns he had made for them.

I find, among the other papers transmitted to me, the following verses, which I have heard him repeat, as what had impressed him a good deal in his unconverted state; and as I suppose they did something towards setting him on this effort towards devotion, and might probably furnish a part of these orisons, I hope I need make no apology to my reader for inserting them, especially as I do not recollect that I have seen them any where else.