Two of his benefactors were officers, and were just then going over to Flanders. Duncan Campbell, to whom they communicated their design, was resolved to try his fortune in a military way, out of a roving kind of humour, raised in him partly by his having taken a sort of aversion to his own profession in town, and partly by his finding that he could not live, without following a profession, as he had done, any longer. He, over a bottle, frankly imparted his mind to them at large; he signified to them that he hoped, since they had lately done him so great a favour in freeing him from one captivity, they would not think him too urgent if he pressed for one favour farther, upon natures so generous as theirs, by whom he took as great a pleasure in being obliged, as he could receive in being capable of obliging others. He wrote to them that the favour he meant was to redeem him from another captivity, almost as irksome to him as that out of which they had lately ransomed him. This captivity, continued he, is being either forced to follow my old profession, which I have taken an entire disgust to, for a maintenance, or being forced to live in a narrower way than suits with my genius, and the better taste I have of higher life. Such a state, gentlemen, you know, is more unpalatable than half-pay; it is like either being forced to go upon the forlorn hope, or else like a man's being an entirely cashiered and broken officer, that had no younger brother's fortune, and no other support but his commission. Thus, though you have set my body at liberty, my soul is still under an imprisonment, and will be till I leave England, and can find means of visiting Flanders, which I can do no otherwise than by the advantage of having you for my convoy. I have a mighty longing to experience some part of a military life, and I fancy, if you will grant me your interest, and introduce me to the valiant young Lord Lorne, and be spokesmen for a dumb man, I shall meet with a favourable reception; and as for you, gentlemen, after having named that great patron and pattern of courage and conduct in the field, I can't doubt but the very name I bear, if you had not known me, would have made you take me for a person of a military genius, and that I should do nothing but what would become a British soldier, and a gentleman; nothing, in fine, that should make you repent the recommendation. These generous and gallant friends of his, it seems, complied with his request, and promised they would make application for him to the Lord Lorne, and Duncan Campbell had nothing to do but to get his bag and baggage ready, and provide himself with a pass. His baggage was not very long a getting together, and he had it in tolerable good order, and as for his pass, a brother of the Lord Forbes was so kind as to procure him one upon the first application Duncan made to him.