39.  Trifling as this matter appears upon naming it, it is, in fact, one of the great concerns of life; and, for my part, I can truly say, that I owe more of my great labours to my strict adherence to the precepts that I have here given you, than to all the natural abilities with which I have been endowed; for these, whatever may have been their amount, would have been of comparatively little use, even aided by great sobriety and abstinence, if I had not, in early life, contracted the blessed habit of husbanding well my time.  To this, more than to any other thing, I owed my very extraordinary promotion in the army.  I was always ready:  if I had to mount guard at ten, I was ready at nine:  never did any man, or any thing, wait one moment for me.  Being, at an age under twenty years, raised from Corporal to Serjeant Major at once, over the heads of thirty Serjeants, I naturally should have been an object of envy and hatred; but this habit of early rising and of rigid adherence to the precepts which I have given you, really subdued these passions; because every one felt, that what I did he had never done, and never could do.  Before my promotion, a clerk was wanted to make out the morning report of the regiment.  I rendered the clerk unnecessary; and, long before any other man was dressed for the parade, my work for the morning was all done, and I myself was on the parade, walking, in fine weather, for an hour perhaps.  My custom was this:  to get up, in summer, at day-light, and in winter at four o’clock; shave, dress, even to the putting of my sword-belt over my shoulder, and having my sword lying on the table before me, ready to hang by my side.  Then I ate a bit of cheese, or pork, and bread.  Then I prepared my report, which was filled up as fast as the companies brought me in the materials.  After this I had an hour or two to read, before the time came for any duty out of doors, unless when the regiment or part of it went out to exercise in the morning.  When this was the case, and the matter was left to me, I always had it on the ground in such time as that the bayonets glistened in the rising sun, a sight which gave me delight, of which I often think, but which I should in vain endeavour to describe.  If the officers were to go out, eight or ten o’clock was the hour, sweating the men in the heat of the day, breaking in upon the time for cooking their dinner, putting all things out of order and all men out of humour.  When I was commander, the men had a long day of leisure before them:  they could ramble into the town or into the woods; go to get raspberries, to catch birds, to catch fish, or to pursue any other recreation, and such of them as chose, and were qualified, to work at their trades.  So that here, arising solely from the early habits of one very young man, were pleasant and happy days given to hundreds.