ABSTRACT

The impatience of Edward to hear something of his friends, to join his regiment, and to regain the comforts of civilized life, did not permit him to accept of the honest Irishman’s hospitable invitation, to repose himself for a few days with him; but as he had still nothing on him but his wampum belt, and panther’s skin, he was obliged to one of the young men for something of a more decent dress, and got from him a shirt, a short jacket, and a pair of trowsers; he likewise furnished him with a horse, and undertook to conduct him to Doctor Denton’s, about thirty miles from where they were, but which was the nearest settlement belonging to any gentleman of fortune in that part of the country. is was highly acceptable to Edward, for he had some little knowledge of the doctor, having seen/ him once or twice at Mrs. Middleham’s, to the sister of whose husband he was married; and he knew him to be a gentleman of such liberal manners, and unbounded benignity of heart, that his having been compelled in the line of his duty to appear once as his enemy would have no weight in diminishing, whatever it might have in adding to, the number and the delicacy of those attentions which he never failed to pay to every person who required them from him. e doctor, indeed, was of a character somewhat singular, but then it was an amiable and a virtuous singularity. He was a younger son of one of the wealthiest planters in the province, who at the same time had the character of being one of the most rigid and severe. e cruelties which he exercised over his negroes had drawn on him the animadversions even of those who seldom pitied them; but had almost broke his son’s heart, which being lled with the sweetest milk of human kindness, could not endure to witness those barbarities which/ no intercession of his could so en, and which at last obliged him to estrange himself wholly from his father’s house.40 He sought therefore and obtained his leave to go over to Europe, where he applied himself to the study of physic, as well as to several other branches of polite literature, in all of which he attained to a considerable degree of eminence. On his return to his native country, he commenced practitioner of physic, and such was his skill and success that he must soon have made a considerable fortune: but here the extreme delicacy of his feelings again interposed, and he was perhaps the only professional man in any country who

felt wounded by the number and the greatness of his fees: but so it was; he could not bear to receive money for his assistance; and as few were either entitled or would choose to ask it for nothing, his practice became con ned either to his immediate relatives, or to those on whom he bestowed it as a charity; and of these, indeed, the number was/ far from inconsiderable. On his father’s death, he became intitled to a considerable fortune, which was increased by his happy union with the amiable daughter of the elder Mr. Middleham, and sister to the husband of the lady whom Edward rescued from the impertinence of a sentinel. Having now an income fully equal to the moderateness of his desires, the doctor retired to the back country, where he had a very extensive plantation, and where his rst care was to compile a short and plain code of laws, formed on the most manifest utility, for the government of his negroes, who amounted to about four hundred. Impressed with a deep sense of religion himself, which was also a striking feature in Mrs. Denton’s character, he endeavoured to communicate this enlivening principle to all over whom he had any in uence, and therefore made it his constant practice, as there was no clergyman within two hundred miles of him, to perform divine service himself every Sunday in one of his outhouses/ tted up for the purpose, to which all were welcome to come that were in the neighbourhood, and where he required the presence of all his negroes who were of an age to understand the business they were about.