Sir James Turner was a soldier of fortune, bred in the civil wars.

He was intrusted with a commission to levy the fines imposed by the Privy Council for non-conformity, in the district of Dumfries and Galloway.

In this capacity he vexed the country so much by his exactions, that the people rose and made him prisoner, and then proceeded in arms towards Mid-Lothian, where they were defeated at Pentland Hills, in 1666.

Besides his treatise on the Military Art, Sir James Turner wrote several other works; the most curious of which is his Memoirs of his own Life and Times, which has just been printed, under the charge of the Bannatyne Club.] He wants to draw up the cavalry in front of a stand of pikes, instead of being upon the wings.

Sure am I, if we had done so at Kilsythe, instead of having our handful of horse on the flanks, the first discharge would have sent them back among our Highlanders .-- But I hear the kettle-drums." All heads were now bent from the battlements of the turret, which commanded a distant prospect down the vale of the river.