 may depend upon as a fact which hath fallen under my own
cognizance, or been vouched upon the credit of undoubted evidence.
    Mr. M--'s father was a minister of the established church of Scotland,
descended from a very ancient clan, and his mother nearly related to a noble
family in the northern part of that kingdom. While the son was boarded at a
public school, where he made good progress in the Latin tongue, his father died,
and he was left an orphan to the care of an uncle, who, finding him determined
against any servile employment, kept him at school, that he might prepare
himself for the university, with a view of being qualified for his father's
profession.
    Here his imagination was so heated by the war-like atchievements he found
recorded in the Latin authors, such as Cæsar, Curtius and Buchanan, that he was
seized with an irresistible thirst of military glory, and desire of trying his
fortune in the army; and his majesty's troops taking the field, in consequence
of the rebellion which happened in the year seventeen hundred and fifteen, this
young adventurer, thinking no life equal to that of a soldier, found means to
furnish himself with a fusil and bayonet, and leaving the school, repaired to
the camp near Stirling, with a view of signalizing himself in the field, though
he was at that time but just turned of thirteen. He offered his service to
several officers, in hope of being inlisted in their companies; but they would
not receive him, because they rightly concluded that he was some school-boy
broke loose, without the knowledge or consent of his relations. Notwithstanding
this discouragement, he continued in camp, curiously prying into every part of
the service; and such was the resolution conspicuous in him, even at such a
tender age, that after his small finances were exhausted, he persisted in his
design; and, because he would not make his wants known, actually subsisted for
several days on hips, haws and sloes, and other spontaneous fruits which he
gathered in the woods and fields. Mean while, he never failed to be present,
when any regiment, or corps of men, were drawn out to be exercised and reviewed,
and accompanied them in all their evolutions, which he had learned to great
perfection, by observing the companies which were quartered in the place where
he was at school. This eagerness and perseverance attracted the notice of many
officers, who after having commended his spirit and zeal, pressed him to return
to his parents, and even threatened to expel him from
