in days when promotion went avowedly by favour and purchase rather than by merit, Jack secured a Lieutenancy in the 19th Regiment.  His father was delighted:  “I wish you much joy with all my heart of your quick rise in being at your age already a Lieutenant in an old Regiment whereas I was past twenty-six years of age before I obtained a Lieutenancy in the British service and that only in a young corps.”  At the time, with Britain warring on the French Directory, service in Europe for Jack was not unlikely, and was desired by Nairne.  But in the end Jack’s regiment was ordered to India.  Nairne was sorely disappointed, but writing to Jack he laid down a great guiding principle:  “we must suppose that Providence orders everything aright and that, provided we are always active and diligent in doing our duty, there is reason to be satisfied.”  In view of what was to happen, his anxiety for the success of his son is pathetic.  He exhorts him in regard to every detail of conduct.  He is to avoid drink and gambling; to pay his accounts promptly; to be punctual and scrupulously exact whenever duty or business is concerned.  The father is particularly anxious about his son’s capacity to express himself in good English and lays down the sound maxim that “writing a correct and easy style is undoubtedly of all education the most necessary and requisite.”  To acquire this he “ought to write and read a great deal with intense labour, attention and application”; to write several hours a day is not too much and to get time he must go to bed early and rise early.  It is wise to keep a grammar and dictionary always at hand to correct possible errors.  He should also translate from French into English.  The father himself undertakes the duty of the complete letter writer, drawing up for Jack a model on which his letters may be based.  “In writing ordinary letters (as in conversation) a large scope may be taken, as of News, all sorts of information, adventures, descriptions, remarks, enquirys, compliments, &c., &c., but in a letter upon business one is commonly confined only to what is necessary to be said on the subject and to civilitys and politeness.”  Certainly Jack did not lack admonition and when he does well his father writes that it makes him “very happy.”  When in one letter Jack mentions the practise of smoking his father is severe:  “All our family have ever been temperate not [practising] even the Debauchery of smoking tobacco, a nasty Dutch, Damn’d custom, a forerunner of idleness and drunkenness; therefore Jack, my lad, let us hear no more of your handling your Pipe, but handle well your fuzee, your sword, your pen and your Books.”

Certainly the pictures sometimes drawn of the brutality, violent manners and ignorance of the British officer at this period find no confirmation in Nairne’s monitions to his son, or in the account of his own military experience which dates from the mid-eighteenth century.  He says to Jack:  “Say your Prayers regularly to God Almighty and trust entirely to His Will and Pleasure for your own preservation....  If you should happen to be in an engagement attend to your men, encourage them to act with spirit in such a manner as most effectually to destroy their enemy’s."[14] When Jack is a little too free in his demands for money the Colonel, writing on Nov. 22nd, 1795, tells him of his own experience: