Major-General Sir Patrick Lindesay was the only son of Lieut.-Colonel John Lindesay of the Fifty-third regiment, and was born at Musselburgh, in the county of Edinburgh, on the 24th of February 1778. He received his education at the university of St. Andrew’s, and was appointed Ensign in the Thirty-second regiment on the 7th of November 1793, and was gazetted Lieutenant in the Seventy-eighth regiment on the day following. Lieutenant Lindesay was wounded while serving with his regiment in Holland in 1794, in the expedition under the command of His Royal Highness the Duke of York, and was promoted to the rank of Captain on the 1st of September 1795. Captain Lindesay was removed from the Seventy-eighth to the THIRTY-NINTH regiment on the 20th of October 1796, and served with the latter corps in the colonies of Demerara, Berbice, and Surinam, from 1797 until December 1802, when the regiment embarked for Barbadoes, proceeding thence to Antigua, and, in March 1803, returned to England, where it arrived in April following. After serving for a short period on the staff as Aide-de-camp to Brigadier-General Brent Spencer in the Sussex district, he accompanied the first battalion of the THIRTY-NINTH regiment to the Mediterranean in March 1805. On the 1st of October 1807 he was advanced to the rank of Major in the THIRTY-NINTH; and this promotion removed him to the second battalion of the regiment, which he subsequently joined at Guernsey, and proceeded with it in June 1809 to Portugal, the battalion having been selected to form part of the force employed in that country under the command of Lieut.-General the Honorable Sir Arthur Wellesley. Major Lindesay was present at the battle of Busaco on the 27th of September 1810, in command of the second battalion of the THIRTY-NINTH regiment, Lieut.-Colonel Wilson having been appointed to the charge of a brigade. At the battle of Albuhera on the 16th of May 1811, Major Lindesay also commanded the second battalion, and received a medal for that action, and on the 20th of June following was promoted to the brevet rank of Lieut.-Colonel. Shortly afterwards he again distinguished himself at Arroyo dos Molinos, on the 28th of October 1811, in an expedition, under the immediate orders of Lieut.-General Rowland Hill, against a division of the French army commanded by General Girard. On this occasion Brevet Lieut.-Colonel Lindesay was detached with the second battalion of the THIRTY-NINTH in pursuit of the discomfited enemy; and at considerable hazard, although without success, personally summoned the French commander to surrender. In 1812 Brevet Lieut.-Colonel Lindesay was employed in England recruiting the second battalion under his command, which had returned from the Peninsula for that purpose.