These were chiefly young men of high birth,
neglected education, and unsound principles; unacquainted with the
nature of the church and government for which they professed to fight,
and so ignorant of religion and morality, as to be perpetually
confounding them with fanaticism and hypocrisy, those constant topics of
their abuse and ridicule. With them to be a republican or a sectary, was
to be a knave, a cut-throat, nay, a devil; and to fight for the King
conferred the privilege of violating those laws, which his supremacy was
designed to guarantee. How dangerous was such society to the impetuous
Eustace Evellin, whose passions unfolded with an ardour, proportioned to
his quick vivacious temper. Dr. Beaumont would have preferred seeing his
charge in the field of battle, to beholding him in this scene of moral
peril, particularly if he could have placed him under the command of the
noble Lord Hopton, who was alike skilled to subdue the enemies of his
King, and to suppress his own resentment at the injuries which he
suffered from those who should have been his coadjutors.
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