jt792« memoirs of brigadier Resen. 207 



in presence either of the soverign or the heir ap- 

 parent; and he used to make us laugh at the serious 

 manner he complained of the amiable and conde- 

 scending great dutchefs, holding him down in an arm- 

 ed chair when he offered to rise on these occasions. 



The veteran likewise frequented the houses of the 

 great, particularly that of the venerable general 

 Betlkoi, director general of the public seminaries of 

 education, so honourably mentioned by the benevolent 

 Howard and Mr Cox, the same school boy he made 

 acquaintance with in the fleet before Copenhagen ; but 

 from the different nature of their services they had 

 never met afterwards till at the inaugural ceremony. 



In this manner the old commodore, spent the last 

 years of his life, happy and carefsed, enjoying much 

 better health than our luxurious, indolent men of 

 faihion at sixty. This observation suffered only one 

 exception, by a fit of illnefs in the year 1785, but of a 

 nature that demonstrated the uncommon force of his 

 constitution and frame, at the advanced age of an hun- 

 dred and five. It was a pleurisy, the disease of vigo- 

 rous young or middle aged men, and of so inflama- 

 tory a nature, that his physician had only the alter- 

 native of seeing his venerable friend perifli in the 

 greatest sufferance, or to rifli. the sarcasms of the pub- 

 lic, if not lofs of reputation, by bleeding and blister- 

 ing a man in his second century, the only pofsible 

 way, however, of saving him. To the surprise of 

 everybody these remedies operated as promptly and 

 effectually as they do in common cases ; and the old 

 Trojan not only bore tbem v.ell, but likewise the 

 violent evacuation of a secret dose of his Virginia tea, 



