His first commission as a cornet in the 16th Light Dragoons bore the date 7th July 1792 (Army List, 1793, p. 50), when he was only eleven years old. He was gazetted lieutenant in the same regiment on the 26th February 1793, and was subsequently transferred to the 80th Foot. On the 20th October 1796 he was gazetted captain in the 17th Light Dragoons, of which regiment his uncle, General Oliver De Lancey, was then colonel. He obtained a majority in the 45th (or Nottinghamshire) Regiment of Foot on the 17th October 1799. He was by this time eighteen years of age, and up to this date had probably no connection with the army at all beyond drawing his pay and figuring in the Army List. Even now he does not appear to have joined his regiment until its return from the West Indies, a year or two afterwards (_Dict. Nat. Biog._, vol. xiv., p. 305). His first uniform was probably that of the 45th Foot, and the portrait, forming the frontispiece of this volume, was in all likelihood painted on his first joining the regiment as a major in 1800 or 1801. In the Army List of 1804 he is shown on page 31 as an assistant quartermaster-general. His actual regimental service can therefore hardly have exceeded two or three years. Until his death in 1815, he was continuously on the staff of the army in the quartermaster-general's department.] The following extract from Captain Basil Hall's _Fragments of Voyages and Travels_, gives an account of the first meeting of the two friends on board the _Endymion_, and of the dramatic circumstances under which Captain Hall heard the news of his sister's marriage, and of De Lancey's death at Waterloo:-- "As we in the _Endymion_ had the exclusive charge of the convoy of transports, we remained to the very last, to assist the ships with provisions, and otherwise to regulate the movements of the stragglers. Whilst we were thus engaged, and lying to, with our main-topsail to the mast, a small Spanish boat came alongside, with two or three British officers in her. On these gentlemen being invited to step up, and say what they wanted, one of them begged we would inform him where the transport No. 139 was to be found. "'How can we possibly tell you that?' said the officer of the watch. 'Don't you see the ships are scattered as far as the horizon in every direction? You had much better come on board this ship in the meantime.' "'No, sir, no,' cried the officers; 'we have received directions to go on board the transport 139, and her we must find.'