Disorganised state of the Legion—Three months’ pay—A holiday—The 6th and 8th Scotch lay down their arms—Reasons—My wishes to retire from the Legion—I give up the command of the company—A reflection—I embark for Santander—Report myself to Colonel Arbuthnot—My new command—The convent of Carbon—Short description—Inhabitants of—First sample—A speculation—A Quarter-master’s conscience—I place him under arrest—A horse! A horse! 263
An orderly dragoon puts us all in confusion—A stir—Retreat upon Santander—The dangers of forgetfulness—Cure for a fever—We return to our old quarters—Captain Shields and Major Clark’s visit—An appeal—A new mode of raising “Volunteers”—Glory or death by famine—One hundred and twenty men are starved into the service again—Scene in Santander—British soldiers and subjects—More assassinations—A cold-blooded Spaniard—A peace-loving Commandant—Captain Oakley and his “cats”—Continued horrors of the convent—Assassination—A relief from purgatory—A conclusion 268
To give a young gentleman right education, The army’s the only good school in the nation.
Introduction of myself to the reader—To the service—Who would not be a Soldier?—A recruit—Wilkie—Cupid’s Row-dow—The service endangered by another—Arrival at Liverpool—I am made prisoner, but not by the French—Recaptured by our sergeant—Lichfield round-house—St. Paul’s—I join my regiment, and the regiment joins us—Great numbers of rank and file burnt alive.
IT has ever been the fashion in story telling to begin, I believe, with the birth of the hero, and as I do not forget, for a moment, that I am my own, I can only modestly say with young Norval I am,
... ... ... of parentage obscure Who nought can boast, but my desire to be A soldier.
I was born at the town of Mount Mellick, Queen’s County, Ireland, on the 26th October, 1788. When I was seven years old my father removed to Dublin, where he had been appointed to the situation of tide waiter. As soon as I became a good sized youth, my father bound me apprentice to a cabinet-maker, in King William Street, in the aforesaid city; but urged by a roving and restless spirit, I soon grew tired of my occupation, which I left on morning early “without beat of drum.”
I next went to live with an uncle, a shoemaker, who employed several men to work in his business. Among these was an old soldier, who had lost a leg, fighting under Sir Ralph Abercrombie, in Egypt. From this old blade, I think it was, I first acquired that martial ardour that so frequently infects young men in time of war. There was, indeed, no resisting the old pensioner’s description of glory. I became red hot for a soldier’s life, and although rejected as too young for the regulars, I “listed,” as it is technically called, in the Dublin Militia on the 17th of June, 1806.