nation to his will. Besides, I do
not know that I met with any disappointment, since I was a Christian, but
it pleased God to discover to me that it was plainly for my advantage, by
bestowing something better upon me afterwards, many instances of which I
am able to produce; and therefore I should be the greatest of monsters,
if I did not trust in him."

I should be guilty of a great omission, if I were not to add how
remarkably the event corresponded with his faith on this occasion; for
whereas he had no intimation or expectation of any thing more than a
regiment of foot, his Majesty was pleased, out of his great goodness,
to give him a regiment of dragoons which was then quartered in his own
neighborhood. It is properly remarked by the reverend and worthy person
through whose hand this letter was transmitted to me, that when the
colonel thus expressed himself, he could have no prospect of what he
afterwards so soon obtained, as General Bland's regiment, to which he was
advanced, was only vacant on the 19th of April--that is, two days before
the date of this letter, when it was impossible he should have any notice
of that vacancy. It also deserves observation, that some few days after
the colonel was thus unexpectedly promoted to the command of these
dragoons, Lord Cornwallis's regiment of foot, then in Flanders, became
vacant. Now, had this happened before his promotion to General Bland's,
Colonel Gardiner, in all probability, would only have had that regiment
of foot, and so would have continued in Flanders. When the affair was
settled, he informs Lady Frances of it in a letter dated from a village
near Frankfort, 3d May, in which he refers to his former of the 21st of
April, observing how remarkably it was verified "in God's having given
him" (for so he expressed it, agreeably to the views which he continually
maintained of the universal agency of Divine Providence) "what he had
no expectation of, and what was so much better than that which he had
missed--a regiment of dragoons quartered at his own door."

CHAPTER XII.

RETURN TO ENGLAND.

It appeared to him that by this remarkable event Providence called him
home. Accordingly, though he had other preferments offered him in the
army, he chose to return, and I believe the more willingly, as he did not
expect there would have been an action. Just at this time it pleased God
to give him an awful instance of the uncertainty of human prospects and
enjoyments,