letter writer, drawing up for Jack a model on which his letters may be based. "In writing ordinary letters (as in conversation) a large scope may be taken, as of News, all sorts of information, adventures, descriptions, remarks, enquirys, compliments, &c., &c., but in a letter upon business one is commonly confined only to what is necessary to be said on the subject and to civilitys and politeness." Certainly Jack did not lack admonition and when he does well his father writes that it makes him "very happy." When in one letter Jack mentions the practise of smoking his father is severe: "All our family have ever been temperate not [practising] even the Debauchery of smoking tobacco, a nasty Dutch, Damn'd custom, a forerunner of idleness and drunkenness; therefore Jack, my lad, let us hear no more of your handling your Pipe, but handle well your fuzee, your sword, your pen and your Books." Certainly the pictures sometimes drawn of the brutality, violent manners and ignorance of the British officer at this period find no confirmation in Nairne's monitions to his son, or in the account of his own military experience which dates from the mid-eighteenth century. He says to Jack: "Say your Prayers regularly to God Almighty and trust entirely to His Will and Pleasure for your own preservation.... If you should happen to be in an engagement attend to your men, encourage them to act with spirit in such a manner as most effectually to destroy their enemy's."[14] When Jack is a little too free in his demands for money the Colonel, writing on Nov. 22nd, 1795, tells him of his own experience: