Old Maxwell, though past his grand climacteric, found no difficulty in walking twenty miles to visit these friends, and especially to confer with the colonel on the military operations. “Please your noble honour,” he would say, “I think we have not done half so much against those yankies as we did against the French, and yet, God be praised, British soldiers have fought like----what can I say? Why, like British soldiers. But their generals----; O Lord, your honour, the slippery ground at White-plains would not have stopped general Wolfe; the heights of Abraham were a great deal steeper. Some people change by preferment. I remember at that very place general ----, then a colonel, was one of the first that got up the precipice. I must say,” continued the loquacious veteran, “Fort Washington was a gallant feat. The defence of Quebec was very well too; and so by G--d was the attack. That Montgomery was a brave fellow; from his name he must be a Scotchman by birth. Poor Fraser too--but I do not know how it was, there was a great deal of courage and valiant fighting with no upshot. We are no nearer the mark than when we began.” The colonel could not help really coinciding with some parts of this criticism, though for obvious reasons he did not reckon it expedient to open his mind without reserve. Both the Messrs. Wentbridge concurred in censuring the execution of the war, but carried their strictures also to its plans and origin. Hamilton as a military man had lofty ideas of the submission due to government in every department, political as well as military; and various disquisitions took place from a diversity of opinion, sufficient to enliven and animate conversation without causing asperity of dispute. Our hero was often present at these dissertations; and being permitted to deliver his opinion, and instructed to support it with acuteness and force, though with modesty and candour, he greatly promoted the extension of his knowledge, as well as the invigoration of his powers, by these exercises. He was himself strongly inclined to the whig side, a reader of the newspapers, and a profound admirer of Charles Fox. He often expressed the delight he should feel on being the author of such speeches as were delivered by that celebrated orator. His father would answer, “You may, if you have merit enough. There are some eminent men in parliament, who raised themselves from a situation no higher than yours.” Topics of this sort sometimes led to considerations respecting the future profession of our hero, especially when he approached the age of seventeen, and acquired a degree of classical literature, as well as other knowledge, that rendered him fit for being sent to an university. His grandfather reviewing the happiness which he himself had enjoyed in a sequestered life, and in the vigour of his own constitution hoping for several years longer life, wished to secure the reversion of his living to his grandson.