The remotest posterity will remember for whom the honour of subduing this unnatural and pernicious rebellion was reserved; and it will endear the Duke of Cumberland to all but the open or secret abettors of it in the present age, and consecrate his name to immortal honours among all the friends of religion and liberty who shall arise after us. And, I dare say, it will not be imagined that I at all derogate from his glory in suggesting, that the memory of that valiant and excellent person whose memoirs I am now concluding may in some measure have contributed to that signal and complete victory with which God was pleased to crown the arms of his Royal Highness; for the force of such an example is very animating, and a painful consciousness of having deserted such a commander in such extremity, must at least awaken, where there was any spark of generosity, an earnest desire to avenge his death on those who had sacrificed his blood, and that of so many other excellent persons, to the views of their ambition, rapine or bigotry.
The reflections which I have made in my funeral sermon on my honoured friend, and in the dedication of it to his worthy and most afflicted lady, supersede many things which might otherwise have properly been added here. I conclude, therefore, with humbly acknowledging the wisdom and goodness of that awful Providence which drew so thick a gloom around him in the last hours of his life, that the lustre of his virtues might dart through it with a more vivid and observable ray. It is abundant matter of thankfulness that so signal a monument of grace, and ornament of the Christian profession, was raised in our age and country, and spared for so many honourable and useful years. Nor can all the tenderness of the most affectionate friendship, while its sorrows bleed afresh in the view of so tragical a scene, prevent my adoring the gracious appointment of the great Lord of all events, that when the day in which he must have expired without an enemy appeared so very near, the last ebb of his generous blood should be poured out, as a kind of sacred libation, to the liberties of his country, and the honour of his God! that all the other virtues of his character, embalmed as it were by that precious stream, might diffuse around a more extensive fragrance, and be transmitted to the most remote posterity with that peculiar charm which they cannot but derive from their connection with so gallant a fall––an event (as that blessed apostle, of whose spirit he so deeply drank, has expressed it) "according to his earnest expectation, and his hope that in him Christ might be glorified in all things, whether by his life or by his death."
[THE COLONEL'S PERSONAL APPEARANCE.]
In the midst of so many more important articles, I had really forgotten to say any thing of the person of Colonel Gardiner, of which, nevertheless, it may be proper here to add a word or two. He was, as I was informed, in younger life remarkably graceful and amiable; and I can easily believe it, from what I knew him to be when our acquaintance began, though he was then turned of fifty, and had gone through so many fatigues as well as dangers, which could not but leave some traces on his countenance. He was tall, (I suppose something more than six feet,) well proportioned, and strongly built; his eyes of a dark gray, and not very large; his forehead pretty high; his nose of a length and height no way remarkable, but very well suited to his other features; his cheeks not very prominent; his mouth moderately large, and his chin rather a little inclining (when I knew him) to be peaked. He had a strong voice and lively accent, with an air very intrepid, yet attempered with much gentleness. There was something in his manner of address most perfectly easy and obliging, which was in great measure the result of the great candour and benevolence of his natural temper, and which, no doubt, was much improved by the deep humility which divine grace had wrought in his heart, as well as his having been accustomed from his early youth to the company of persons of distinguished rank and polite behaviour.
The picture of him, which is given at the beginning of these memoirs, was taken from an original done by Van Deest (a Dutchman brought into Scotland by general Wade,) in the year 1727, which was the 40th of his age, and is said to have been very like him then, though far from being an exact resemblance of what he was when I had the happiness of being acquainted with him.[*] Perhaps he would have appeared to the greatest advantage of all, could he have been exactly drawn on horseback; as many very good judges, and among the rest the celebrated Mons. Faubert himself, have spoken of him as one of the completest horsemen that has ever been known; and there was indeed something so singularly graceful in his appearance in that attitude, that it was sufficient (as what is very eminent in its kind generally is,) to strike an eye not formed on any critical rules.
[*Note: In presenting this likeness for the first time in an American edition of this work, the artist has taken the liberty to change the costume, by substituting the ordinary military dress for the court dress of the original.––Editor of the Pres. Board of Publication.]
[Transcriber's Note: The picture is not available.]
[APPENDIX I.]
(Referred to at the end of Chapter VI, LETTERS.)
It may not be amiss, in illustration of Dr. Doddridge's remarks on the subject of dreams, to present to the reader the following account of a remarkable dream which occurred to the Doctor himself, and had a beneficial influence on his own mind.––ED. PRES. BD. PUB.