160 MEMOIR OF THOMAS BEWICK. 



friendly terms with James Ramsey, the very 

 eminent portrait painter. Another worthy with 

 whom I spent many a pleasant evening was 

 William Gill.* He had long- been colliery agent 

 to Lord Windsor (one of the partners of the 

 Grand Allies in which office he was much 

 esteemed. He was a man of great reading, and 

 had reflected upon what he read. He was also, 

 like all men of sense and spirit, of a patriotic turn, 

 and foretold the consequences of the late war of 

 Kings, w T hich he considered as an attempt to 

 destroy the civil liberties of mankind ; and I have 

 often since wondered to find his predictions unfold 

 themselves so truly as they have done. In this he 

 was simple, plain and argumentative, and they 

 were dictated only by truth and sincerity. He 

 was of a social turn of mind, and for an old man 

 was wonderfully clear, sensible and cheerful, and 

 this prompted him to select such as he thought 

 were of the same stamp, and these he often invited 

 to spend the evening with him. He also besides 

 these pleasing qualities was an attentively judicious 

 and charitable man, and in this w r ay did not do 

 that business by halves, for wherever he found an 

 honest industrious man with a family, struggling 

 to get forward, he never lost sight of him until he 

 placed him in a fair way to prosperity. He how- 

 ever outlived his faculties and left all his property 

 past his poor relations, particularly a brother who 

 was a poor schoolmaster, but who I believe he 

 was persuaded was dead, as well as others of 

 his near relations \vhom he once intended to 

 provide for. 



* William Gill died 2oth February 1802, aged 83, and was buried 

 at Whickham. 



