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where they take a liking to particular persons, those they adopt as their children, and use them as such.

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The Doctor joins in affectionate respects to my dear father, and you, the boys, and all our dear friends I am as much as ever, and will be to my latest breath, my dear mamma, your affectionate daughter,

"I. GRAHAM."

Mrs. Graham always considered the time she passed at Niagara as the happiest of her days, considered in a temporal view. The officers of the regiment were amiable men, attached to each other, and the ladies were united in the ties of friendship. The society there, se cluded from the world, exempt from the collision of individual and separate interests, which often create so much discord in large communities, and studious to promote the happiness of each other, enjoyed that tranquillity and contentment which ever accompany a disinterested interchange of friendly offices. But this fort being detached from other settlements, the garrison were deprived of ordinances and the public means of grace, and the life of religion in the soul of Mrs. Graham sunk to a low ebb. A conscientious observance of the Sabbath, which throughout life she maintained, proved to her at Niagara as a remembrance and revival of devotional exercises. She wandered on those sacred days into the woods around Niagara, searched her Bible, communed with God and herself, and poured out her soul in prayer to her covenant Lord. Throughout the week, the attention of her friends, her domestic comfort and employments, and the amusements pursued in the garrison, she used to confess, occupied too much of her time and of her affections.

Here we behold a little society enjoying much com fort and happiness in each other, yet falling short of that pre-eminent duty and superior blessedness of glorifying, as they ought to have done, the God of heaven, who fed them by his bounty, and offered them a full and free salvation in the Gospel of his Son. No enjoyments nor possessions, however ample and acceptable, can crown the soul with peace and true felicity, unless accompanied with the fear and favor of Him who can speak pardon to the transgressor, and shed abroad his love in the hearts of his children: thus giving an earnest of spiritual and eternal blessedness along with temporal good.

The commencement of the revolutionary struggle in America rendered it necessary, in the estimation of the British government, to order to another and very diverse scene of action the sixtieth regiment, composed in a great measure of Americans.

Their destination was the Island of Antigua ; Dr. and Mrs. Graham, and their family, consisting of three infant daughters and two young Indian girls, sailed from Niagara to Oswego, and from thence, by a path through the woods, reached the Mohawk, which river they descended in batteaux to Schenectady. Here Dr.

Graham left his family, and went to New-York to complete a negotiation he had entered into for disposing of his commission, to enable him to settle, as he origi. nally intended, on a tract of land which it was in his power to purchase on the banks of the river they had just descended. The gentleman proposing to purchase his commission, not being able to perfect the arrangement in time, Dr. Graham found himself under the

necessity of proceeding to Antigua with the regiment. Mrs. Graham, on learning this, hurried down with her family to accompany him, although he had left it op tional with her to remain till he should have ascertained the nature of the climate, and the probability of his continuing in the West Indies.

At New-York they were treated with much kind ness by the late Rev. Dr. John Rodgers, and others especially by the family of Mr. Vanbrugh Livingston With Mr. Livingston's daughter, the wife of Major Brown, of the sixtieth regiment, Mrs. Graham formed a very intimate friendship, which continued during the life of Mrs. Brown.

They embarked with the regiment, November 5, 1772, for Antigua.

CHAPTER II.

RESIDENCE AT ANTIGUA-DR. GRAHAM'S DEATH.

Within three weeks after their arrival at Antigua, six companies were ordered to the Island of St. Vincents to quell an insurrection of the Caribs. The Doctor accompanied them, and Mrs. Graham was called to the pain of separation under circumstances more trying than she had as yet experienced, as the war with savages might expose him to the most cruel death. In these circumstances she wrote him as follows:

"ANTIGUA, January 16, 1773.

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Mr.

"MY DEAREST DOCTOR,-This goes by Mr. Wsails to-morrow; also a letter to Captain GM- — begs to be remembered to you: he has been foot and hand to me since you left. My dearest Doc tor, suffer me to put you in remembrance of what you put in the end of your trunk the morning you left me,* and let it not lie idle. Read it as the voice of God to your soul. My dearest love, I have been greatly dis tressed for fear of your dear life; but the love I bear to your soul is as superior to that of your body, as the value of one surpasses the other; consequently my anxiety for its interest is proportioned. May Heaven preserve my dearest love-lead you, guide you, direct you, so can you never go wrong-protect and defend you, so shall you ever be safe, is the daily prayer of your affectionate wife, I. GRAHAM.

"P. S. I am told that you have taken a number of prisoners. I know not if you have any right to entail slavery on these poor creatures. If any fall to your share, do set them at liberty."

On the 8th of June Mrs. Graham wrote to her mother, expressing her gratitude for her husband's safe return, and noticing some gratifying indications of the calm and peaceful state of his mind:

"You would be surprised to hear the Doctor preach. He says we ought to be thankful; we have hitherto

* Doddridge's Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul.

been richly and bountifully provided for; we ought not to repine, nor doubt, seeing we have the same Provi dence to depend upon; that we ought not to set our hearts upon any thing in this world; being very short sighted we cannot know what is proper for us. Having done for the best, when we are disappointed, we ought to rest satisfied that either what we wish is not for our good, or it will in some future dispensation of Providence be brought about another way and in a fitter time. Indeed, my dear mamma, in some things he is a better christian than I am. May God make him so in every thing."

Thus was the Lord preparing his servant for what was so soon to follow, not his dismission from the regiment, which he so ardently desired, but from this world and its temptations and snares. Mrs. Graham's prayers were answered, but "by terrible things in righteousness."

She added a request that her mother would receive her eldest daughter, who, though at the early age of five years, she feared would receive injurious influences from the corrupt state of society around her, and accordingly, not long after, sent her to Scotland; but before her arrival her grandmother had been called to a better world In reference to this event Mrs. Graham wrote to her bereaved father as follows:

"ANTIGUA, August 21, 1773. "MY DEAREST PAPA,-The heart-rending tidings of my dear, my tender, my affectionate mother's death reached me yesterday. I am so distressed that I can

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