II ACCOUNT OF THE LIFE AND

His conftitution during infancy was infirm andfickly, and required all the tender folicitude of hisfurviving parent. She was blamed for treating himwith an unlimited indulgence; but it producedno unfavorable effects on his temper or his difpo-fitions: — and he enjoyed the rare fatisfaftion ofbeing able to repay her affection, by every atten-tion that filial gratitude could dictate, during thelong period of hxty years.

An accident which happened to him when hewas about three years old, is of too interefting anature to be omitted in the account of fo valuablea life. He had been carried by his mother to Stra-thenry on a vifit to his uncle Mr. Douglas , andwas one day arnufmg himfelf alone at the door ofthe houfe, when he was flolen by a party of thatfet of vagrants who are known in Scotland by thename of tinkers. Luckily he was foon miffed byhis uncle, who hearing that fome vagrants hadpaffed, purfued them, with what affiftance hecould find, till he overtook them in Lellie wood;and was the happy inftrument of preferving to theworld a genius, which was deftined, not only to

he was appointed comptroller of the cuftoms at Kirkaldy . He wasalfo clerk to the courts martial and councils of war for Scotland i-an office which he held from 1707 till his death. As it is nowfeventy years fince he died, the accounts I have received of himare very imperfeft; but from the particulars already mentioned,it fa ay be prefumed, that he was a man of more than commonabilities.