Stockton, and, at his death, it came, considerably encumbered, to my
father, in the year 1774, the year after I was born. Finding, during the
life time of his father, that this was a very poor property to live upon
as a gentleman, he turned his mind to business, and to the improvement of
his fortune. He married at the age of forty-one to Miss Powell who was
only nineteen, the eldest daughter of a respectable farmer of Week near
Devizes, and went to live at Widdington, in the parish of Upavon, a lone
farm situated upon Salisbury Plain, not within one mile of any other house
whatever. The 6th day of November, 1773, gave birth to the author of these
memoirs, and as I was the first born, my father having a great deal of the
old family pride about him, the event was commemorated in a very memorable
and extraordinary manner. It was the custom of the country to celebrate
the birth of a child by inviting the friends and neighbours to partake of
a _sugar-toast_ feast, which consisted of toast well baked, sliced in
layers, in a large bowl, interspersed with sugar and nutmeg, well soaked
in boiling ale, or what was called in that country, good old October. My
father as soon as he was about to marry, anticipating the natural result,
prepared and provided two hogsheads of real stingo for the occasion, it
being brewed exactly fifteen bushels to the hogshead, which he liberally
determined should be devoted to celebrate the happy event, which was
literally carried into effect. I have very often heard those who were
present, and who participated in the good cheer and rejoicing, mention
these circumstances. It was usual, in that part of the country, upon these
occasions, to have a day fixed and set apart for the feast, when all the
neighbours were invited to partake and drink to the health of the good
lady in the straw, and long life to the little stranger. But upon this
occasion my father set no bounds to his joy, and determined to keep it up,
which he did, till the whole to the last hoop of the stingo was gone. I
have heard the nurse say that she toasted bread from morning till night
for a fortnight, and that in the whole there could not have been less