Page:Life of Colonel Jack (1810).djvu/23

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COLONEL JACK.
7

they call it; was full of jests and good humour, and, as I often said, had something of a gentleman in him. He had a true manly courage, feared nothing, and could ook death in the face, without any hesitation; and yet, if he had the advantage, was the most generous and most compassionate creature alive. He had native principles of gallantry in him, without any thing of the brutal or terrible part that the captain had; and in a word, he wanted nothing but honesty to have made him an excellent man. He had learned to read, as I had done; and as he talked very well, so he wrote good sense, and very handsome language, as you will see in the process of his story.

As for your humble servant, colonel Jack, he was a poor unhappy tractable dog, willing enough, and capable too, to learn any thing, if he had had any but the devil for his schoolmaster: he set out into the world so early, that when he began to do evil, he understood nothing of the wickedness of it, nor what he had to expect for it. I remember very well, that when I was once carried before a justice, for a theft which indeed I was not guilty of, and defended myself by argument, proving the mistakes of my accusers, and how they contradicted themselves; the justice told me it was a pity I had not been better employed, for I was certainly better taught; in which however his worship was mistaken,