Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE PORT FOLIO. FOURTH SERIES. CONDUCTED BY OLIVER OL.DSCHOOL, ESQ. Various; that the mind Of desultory man, studious of change And pleased with novelty, may be indulged.?Oowper. VOL. VI. AUGUST, 1818. No. II. FOR THE PORT-FOLIO. MEMOIRS OF RICHARD MONTGOMERY, MAJOR GENERAL IN THE ARMY OF THE UNITED STATES. Richard Montgomery was born in Ireland in the year 1737, a descendant of an ancient and honourable family. After receiving % liberal education, he entered the army at an early period. In his twenty-first year we find him holding the rank of a captain in the seventeenth British regiment, under general Monclon. He had borne a full share in all the American wars and the reduction of Canada, and had therefore no common claims to promotion. But although his military abilities were highly distinguished, war and conquest bad no other charms to him than as the means of peace and happiness, to mankind, and he found leisure in the midst of camps to cultivate an excellent taste for philosophy and polite literature. To these he added a careful study of the arts of government and the rights of mankind; looking forward to that time when he might return to the still scenes of private life, and give a full flow to the native and acquired virtues of a heart rich in moral excellence. He had formed an early attachment, amounting even to an enthusiastic love for this country. The woodland and the plain; the face of Nature, grand, venerable, and yet rejoicing in her prime; our mighty rivers, descending in vast torrents through wild and shaggy mountains, or gliding in silent majesty through fertile vales; their numerous branches and tributary springs; our romantic scenes of rural quiet; our simplicity, then uncorrupted by luxury or flagrant vice; our love of knowledge and ardou...