ip,
and the man who was sentry that night told my mother years afterwards,
that when he saw my father on his knees praying, he thought it would
soon be all over with them; then seeing him go to bed and fall asleep,
he felt no more fear. In the morning the coast was strewed with wrecks.
There were no life-boats in those days; now the lives of hundreds are
annually saved by the noble self-devotion of British sailors.

My mother was the daughter of Samuel Charters, Solicitor of the Customs
for Scotland, and his wife Christian Murray, of Kynynmont, whose eldest
sister married the great grandfather of the present Earl of Minto. My
grandmother was exceedingly proud and stately. She made her children
stand in her presence. My mother, on the contrary, was indulgent and
kind, so that her children were perfectly at ease with her. She seldom
read anything but the Bible, sermons, and the newspaper. She was very
sincere and devout in her religion, and was remarkable for good sense
and great strength of expression in writing and conversation. Though by
no means pretty, she was exceedingly distinguished and ladylike both in
appearance and manners.

My father was constantly employed, and twice distinguished himself by
attacking vessels of superior force. He captured the first, but was
overpowered by the second, and being taken to France, remained two years
a prisoner on parole, when he met with much kindness from the Choiseul
family. At last he was exchanged, and afterwards was appointed
lieutenant on board a frigate destined for foreign service. I think it
was the North American station, for the war of Independence was not over
till the beginning of 1783. As my mother knew that my father would be
absent for some years, she accompanied him to London, though so near her
confinement that in returning home she had just time to arrive at the
manse of Jedburgh, her sister Martha Somerville's[2] house, when I was
born, on the 26th December, 1780. My mother was dangerously ill, and my
aunt, who was about to wean her second daughter Janet, who married
General Henry Elliot, nursed me till a wetnurse could be found. So I was
born in the house of my future husband, and nursed by his mother--a
rather singular coincidence.

During my father's absence, my mother lived with great economy in a
house not far from Burntisland which belonged to my grandfather, solely
occupied with the care of her family, which consisted of her eldest son
Samuel, four