He served as a cadet very early: and at fourteen years old, he bore an ensign’s commission in a Scotch regiment in the Dutch service; in which he continued till 1702, when he received an ensign’s commission from Queen Anne, which he bore in the battle of Ramilies, in his nineteenth year.
On this occasion, our young officer was commanded on what seemed almost a desperate service, to dispossess the French of the church-yard at Ramilies, where a considerable number of them were posted to remarkable advantage. They succeeded better than was expected, and Mr. G. 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 the men (probably in that horrid language which is so peculiar a disgrace to our soldiery) he received a shot in his mouth, which, without beating out any of his teeth, or touching the forepart of his tongue, went through his neck. 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 dropping soon after, he traced the passage of it by his finger, when he could discover it no other way.
This accident happened about five or six in the evening, on the 23d of May, in the year 1706; and the army pursuing its advantages against the French, without regarding the wounded, our young officer lay all night in the field, agitated, as may well be supposed, with a great variety of thoughts. When he reflected upon the circumstances 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, that he should live, abandoned and desperate as his condition then seemed. Yet had he little thought of humbling himself before God, and returning to Him after the wanderings of a life licentiously begun. But, expecting to recover, his mind was taken up with contrivances to secure his gold, of which he had nearly twenty pistoles about him; and he had recourse to a very odd expedient. Expecting to be stripped, he took out a handful of clotted gore, of which he was frequently obliged to clear his mouth; and putting it into his left hand, he took out the money, and shutting his hand, besmeared the back of it with blood; in this position he kept it till the blood so dried, that his hand could not easily fall open.
In the morning, the French, who were masters of that spot, though 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, a cordelier, who attended them, interposed, taking him by his dress for a Frenchman, and said, “Do not kill the poor child.” Our young soldier heard all that passed, 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; from which he said he derived a more sensible refreshment than he could remember from any thing he had tasted either before or since. Then, asking, by signs, 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 nephew to the governor of Huy, a neutral town in the neighbourhood, and that, if they could convey him thither, he did not doubt but his uncle would liberally reward them. He had indeed a friend there, but the relationship was pretended. However, on hearing this, they laid him on a sort of hand-barrow, and sent him with a file of musketeers towards the place; but the men lost their way, and got into a wood towards the evening, 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 other 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 stanch the blood; and he often mentioned it as a most astonishing providence, that he did not bleed to death.
Judging it quite unsafe to attempt carrying him to Huy, 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 tent which this artist applied, was almost like a peg driven into the wound; yet, by the blessing of God, he recovered in a few months. The lady abbess, who called him her son treated him with the affection and care of a mother. He received a great many devout admonitions from the ladies there, and they would fain have persuaded him to acknowledge so miraculous a deliverance, by embracing the Catholic Faith, as they were pleased to call it. But, though no religion lay near his heart, he had too much the spirit of a gentleman, lightly to change that form of religion which he wore loose about him.
When his liberty was regained by an exchange of prisoners, and his health established, he was far from rendering to the Lord according to the mercy he had experienced. Very little is known of the particulars of those wild and thoughtless years which lay between the nineteenth and thirtieth of his life; except that he experienced the divine goodness in preserving him in several hot military actions; and yet these years were spent in an entire alienation from God, and an eager pursuit of sensual pleasure as his supreme good.
Amidst all these wanderings from religion, virtue, and happiness, he approved himself so well in his military character, that he was made a lieutenant in 1708; and, after several intermediate promotions, appointed major of a regiment commanded by the Earl of Stair. In January, 1729–30, he was advanced to the rank of lieutenant-colonel in the same regiment: and here continued till April, 1743; when he received a colonel’s commission over a regiment of dragoons; and at the head of which he valiantly fell about two years and a half after he received it.
We now return to that period of his life which passed at Paris, where he resided in the family of the Earl of Stair, with some interruptions, till about the year 1720.
The Earl’s favour and generosity made him easy in his affairs, though he was part of the time out of commission, the regiment to which he belonged being disbanded. This was, in all probability, the gayest part of his life, and the most criminal. Whatever good examples he might find in the family where he lived, it is certain that the French court was one of the most dissolute under heaven. What, by a wretched abuse of language, have been called intrigues of love and gallantry, constituted, if not the whole business, at least the whole pleasure of his life: his fine constitution, than which, perhaps, there was hardly ever a better, gave him great opportunities of indulging himself in those excesses; and his good spirits enabled him to pursue his pleasures in such a manner, that multitudes envied him, and called him, by a dreadful kind of compliment, “The happy rake.”
Yet the checks of conscience, and some remaining principles of so good an education, would break in upon his most licentious hours; and when some of his dissolute companions were once congratulating him upon his felicity, a dog happening at that time to come into the room, he could not forbear groaning inwardly, and saying to himself, “O that I were that dog!” Such was then 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.