Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1889 edition. Excerpt: ...He was of a military line, being a descendant of that old Earl of Leven who was a soldier under Gustavus, Captain Leslie's Death-wound. 379 and who at the battle of Marston Moor boldly rode at the head of his tough Scotch covenanters to oppose the cavalier troopers, massed by the thousands under the silken standard of Prince Rupert. It is a singular circumstance that when Captain Leslie received his death-wound, so far from home and kindred, the only two Americans knowing of him and his people were in the immediate vicinity, one being in the army against which he was contending. He fought his last battle almost within the shadows of the walls of a college whose president, John Witherspoon, was the lifelong friend of his parents. Before being called to America Doctor Witherspoon had been a prominent Presbyterian minister at Paisley, a Scottish town not far from Melville House, the seat of the Earl of Leven. Captain Leslie's mother, the countess, was a devout adherent to the kirk of Scotland, and had the interests of Presbyterianism much at heart. That she might keep informed as to its progress in America, for a number of years after her old friend had been called to the presidency of the college of New Jersey she continued with him a religious and friendly correspondence, and ever held him in high esteem. Strange as it may appear, when Leslie fell he almost at once received aid from another friend of his parents. Surgeon Benjamin Rush, before mentioned, had gained his medical education at the University of Edinburgh. While in Scotland he became acquainted with the family of the Earl of Leven. The young student's refined and polished manners, together with the peculiarly fascinating conversational powers with which he was endowed, made his...
