Her son Charles was by this time grown up into a stout buirdly lad,
and it was expected that, before the return of the Tobacco trader,
he would have been out of his time, and a man afore the mast, which
was a great step of preferment, as I heard say by persons skilled in
seafaring concerns. But this was not ordered to happen; for, when
the Tobacco trader was lying in the harbour of Virginia in the North
Americas, a pressgang, that was in need of men for a man-of-war,
came on board, and pressed poor Charles, and sailed away with him on
a cruise, nobody, for many a day, could tell where, till I thought
of the Lord Eaglesham's kindness. His lordship having something to
say with the king's government, I wrote to him, telling him who I
was, and how jocose he had been when buttoned in my clothes, that he
might recollect me, thanking him, at the same time, for his
condescension and patronage to Andrew Lanshaw, in his way to the
East Indies. I then slipped in, at the end of the letter, a bit
nota-bene concerning the case of Charles Malcolm, begging his
lordship, on account of the poor lad's widow mother, to enquire at
the government if they could tell us any thing about Charles. In
the due course of time, I got a most civil reply from his lordship,
stating all about the name of the man-of-war, and where she was; and
at the conclusion his lordship said, that I was lucky in having the
brother of a Lord of the Admiralty on this occasion for my agent, as
otherwise, from the vagueness of my statement, the information might
not have been procured; which remark of his lordship was long a
great riddle to me; for I could not think what he meant about an
agent, till, in the course of the year, we heard that his own
brother was concerned in the admiralty; so that all his lordship
meant was only to crack a joke with me, and that he was ever ready
and free to do, as shall be related in the sequel, for he was an
excellent man.