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 opportunities for making himself known and getting into an acquaintance with some of the Spanish cavaliers, who were in the interest of King Charles. Amongst these was Don Raphael de Ponto, a man of fortune and family amongst the Catalans, but, as is usual with the Spaniards, very amorous and continually employed in some intrigue or other. He was mightily pleased with Carrick's humour, and conceived for him a friendship, in which the Spaniards are perhaps more constant and at the same time more zealous, than any other nation in Europe. As Carrick had been bred a Roman Catholic and always continued so, notwithstanding his professing the contrary to those in the Army, so he made no scruple of going to Mass with his Spanish friend, which passed with the English officers only as a piece of complaisance.