Person, when he came to Years of Maturity and Reflection, Sentiments of a quite different Nature from those which he always, with a Generosity of Temper peculiar to himself, expressed when that Affair has been mentioned to him; constantly excusing his Mother for taking any Methods, how injurious soever they may have been to himself, to be disengaged from an Husband, whose ill Treatment of her could not suffer her to live much to her Content with him. [1] D. _Hamilton_ and Lord _Mohun_. But to give the Reader his History in as exact Order of Time as possible, we shall begin with the Day of his Birth, which was _January the 10th_, 1697-8. A Day, that he might very reasonably, in the Language of the despairing _Job_, have repented his ever seeing, when he considered, as he had too frequently the bitterest Occasions to do, what an almost uninterrupted Train of Miseries it had introduced him into. The Reader may easily imagine, that an Affair of this extraordinary Kind, among Persons of that high Rank, did not a little employ the Conversation and Scandal of the Town, for which Reason, the Lady resolving to move out of her Sight, and if possible, by that, out of her Remembrance, him, who was innocently the Cause of her Reproach, committed him to the Care of a poor Woman, with Orders to breed him up as her own, and in a Manner suitable to her Condition, withal, laying a strict Injunction upon her, never to let him come to the Knowledge of his real Parents. The Nurse was faithful to the Trust reposed in her, at the same Time not neglecting to do her Duty to the Infant in a homely Manner, agreeable to the Disposition of a well-meaning ordinary Person, and her scanty Allowance from his Mother's Relations; for she did not appear in the Affair herself, but her Mother, my Lady _Mason_, whether at her Daughter's Desire, or prompted by her own natural Compassion, I shall not pretend to determine, transacted every Thing with the _Nurse_, whose Name was the only one, for many Years, he knew he had any Claim to, and was called after it accordingly; although his real Father, the late _Earl Rivers_, was himself one of his God-fathers, and had his right Name regularly Registered in the Parish Books of St. _Andrew's Holbourn_; Mrs. _Lloyd_, his God-mother, was as kind to him as the Time she lived would admit of, but her Death, next to his own Birth, was his earliest Misfortune; for he not only lost, in all likelihood, a very good Friend, but could never recover any Part of the 300 Pounds she left him as a Legacy. When he arrived at Years capable of receiving the first Rudiments of Learning, and after an Attempt had been made in vain, to have had him spirited away to one of the _American_ Plantations, he was sent to a little _Grammar_ School at St. _Alban's_ in _Hertfordshire_. Here I hope I shall be excused saying, That by the great _Natural Genius_ he discover'd, this _School_ has had ample Retribution for the