Produced by Brian Coe, Charlie Howard, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) A BOY IN THE PENINSULAR WAR A BOY IN THE PENINSULAR WAR THE SERVICES, ADVENTURES, AND EXPERIENCES OF ROBERT BLAKENEY SUBALTERN IN THE 28TH REGIMENT AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY EDITED BY JULIAN STURGIS AUTHOR OF “JOHN A DREAMS,” “COMEDY OF A COUNTRY HOUSE,” ETC. _WITH A MAP_ SECOND IMPRESSION LONDON JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET 1899 TO HIS WIFE THE EDITOR DEDICATES THESE MEMOIRS OF HER MOTHER’S FATHER, FOR WHOSE ACQUAINTANCE HE IS GLAD TO OWN YET ONE MORE DEBT OF GRATITUDE TO HER. INTRODUCTION. Othello, confessing that he cannot grace his cause with studied eloquence, pleads that at the tender age of seven years he gave himself to the grim labours of the tented field. Compared with this dark heroic babe, young Blakeney, joining the 28th Regiment as a boy of fifteen, must seem a hardy veteran. Yet he too pleads, as excuse for lack of style in the Memoirs which he left behind him, that soldiering and fighting began so early in his life as to leave scant time for acquisition of the literary airs and graces. And in the same apologetic vein he says that he wrote his Memoirs in an island where were no libraries and no books of reference in which he might verify the dates and facts of his plain unvarnished tale. It may be that to some more literary penman the idea of writing memoirs in the Island of Zante, one of those Grecian isles which toward sunset show form so delicate and colour so exquisite that one would think them rather the kingdom of Oberon than the haunt of a retired warrior of the Peninsula--to sit at ease in that enchanted air and summon from the past the gallant deeds of heroes and the kind looks of friends--may seem no despicable recompense for the sad want of all the books of reference. With groaning shelves and ponderous catalogues in easy reach, conscience makes cowards of us poor followers of literature; we are chilled in mid career, and our happy freedom of statement is checked by intrusive doubt of the date of this battle or of the name of that general. Even the irresponsible purveyor of fiction must tramp the street or fly on the handy bicycle, to make sure that he has not plunged his hero into the midst of a revolution two years before it took place, or shown his tender heroine in tears over the song of an eminent composer ere yet the moving song-writer was breeched. How deep was the regret which the author of these Memoirs felt for the premature end of his lessons and for the want of invaluable books of reference, I am unable to say; but I have ventured to suppress his brief preface of apology because frankly I claim for him not pardon nor tolerance, but gratitude and even affection.