TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE THE EARL OF MOIRA, COMMANDER IN CHIEF OF HIS MAJESTY'S FORCES IN SCOTLAND. MY LORD, I ADDRESS this Work to your Lordship from the same motive with which it was written, that I may recommend to mankind the pursuit of the virtues which exalt and adorn the human character. And surely in no way can this recommendation be rendered more succesful than by prefixing to my book a name, which cannot fail to recal to the memory of every reader an existing in 39X677 + stance in which public spirit, high talents, and all those diversified forms of excellence to which the human mind has in speculation been thought capable of attaining-have been realized in practice and have rendered their possessor the object of universal confidence and esteem. I NEED not state to the Earl of MOIRA the propriety of fulfilling any of the duties which he owes to society. One of these undoubtedly consists in suffering the example of his distinguished worth, and of his many virtues, to be pointed out to the present and to succeeding times as an object of honourable emulation.---It is for the sake of others, therefore, that he is reminded of the estimation in which his character is held, and that he is now told, that in the councils of his country he has exhibited the wisdom of a statesman, unaffected by passion and incorruptible by interest;-that he has united the accomplishments of an enlightened and elevated mind to that temperate and exem. plary conduct in private life, to which nations owe their stability, and man his solid welfare;— and that a whole people have seen with sa tisfaction their safety entrusted to the tried energy and vigilance of a warrior, whose enlarged capacity has enabled him to fight the battles of the British empire, without forgetting the interests of mankind; and whose conduct and pur poses even the voice of Faction has never ventured to calumniate. |