“In my first letter to my father, I told you, that from the moment our late lethargic lieutenant-colonel came to the island, he took to drinking rum, pure rum, to waken himself--claret, port, and madeira, had lost their power over him. Then came brandy, which he fancied was an excellent preservative against the yellow fever, and the fever of the country. So he died ‘boldly by brandy.’ Poor fellow! he was boasting to me, the last week of his existence, when he was literally on his deathbed, that his father taught him to drink before he was six years old, by practising him every day, after dinner, in the sublime art of carrying a bumper steadily to his lips. He, moreover, boasted to me, that when a boy of thirteen, at an academy, he often drank two bottles of claret at a sitting; and that, when he went into the army, getting among a jolly set, he brought himself never to feel the worse for any quantity of wine. I don’t know what he meant by the worse for it--at forty-five, when I first saw him, he had neither head nor hand left for himself or his country. His hand shook so, that if he had been perishing with thirst, he could not have carried a glass to his lips, till after various attempts in all manner of curves and zigzags, spilling half of it by the way. It was really pitiable to see him--when he was to sign his name I always went out of the room, and left Gascoigne to guide his hand. More helpless still his mind than his body. If his own or England’s salvation had depended upon it, he could not, when in the least hurried, have uttered a distinct order, have dictated an intelligible letter; or, in time of need, have recollected the name of any one of his officers, or even his own name--quite imbecile and embruted. But, peace to his ashes--or rather to his dregs--and may there never be such another British colonel!