forego them they will
quickly acquire that may put it in their power to enjoy them, though
obtained at the rate of perpetrating the most ignominious offences. If
there had not been too much truth in this observation we should hardly
find in the list of criminals persons who, like James Carrick, have had
a liberal education, and were not meanly descended, bringing themselves
to the most miserable of all states and reflecting dishonour upon those
from whom they were descended.

This unfortunate person was the son of an Irish gentleman, who lived not
far from Dublin, and whom we must believe to have been a man of
tolerable fortune, since he provided as well for all his children as to
make even this, who was his youngest, an ensign. James was a perfect boy
at the time when his commission required him to quit Ireland to repair
to Spain, whither, a little before, the regiment wherein he was to serve
had been commanded. As he had performed his duty towards the rest of his
children, the father was more than ordinarily fond of this his youngest,
whom therefore he equipped in a manner rather beyond that capacity in
which he was to appear upon his arrival at the army. In his person James
was a very beautiful well-shaped young man, of a middle size, and
something more than ordinarily genteel in his appearance, as his father
had taken care to supply him abundantly for his expenses; so when he
came into Spain he spent his money as freely as any officer of twice his
pay. His tent was the constant rendezvous of all the beaux who were at
that time in the camp, and whenever the army were in quarters, nobody
was handsomer, or made a better figure than Mr. Carrick.

Though we are very often disposed to laugh at those stories for fictions
which carry in them anything very different from what we see in daily
experience, yet as the materials I have for this unfortunate man's life
happen both to be full and very exact, I shall not scruple mentioning
some of his adventures, which I am persuaded will neither be unpleasant,
nor incapable of improving my readers.

The regiment in which Carrick served was quartered at Barcelona, after
the taking of that place by the English troops[19] who supported the
title of the present Emperor to the crown of Spain. The inhabitants were
not only civil, but to the last degree courteous to the English, for
whom they always preserved a greater esteem than for any other nation.
Carrick, therefore, had frequent o