Transcribed from the 1882 G. S. Cook edition by David Price, email ccx074@pgaf.org [Picture: Book cover] _Spes tutissima Cælis_. * * * * * Interesting Incidents _Connected with the Life of_ GEORGE BICKERS, _Originally a Farmer’s Parish Apprentice at_ _Laxfield_, _in Suffolk_, _but now_ RESIDING IN OULTON, _In the same County_, _Being an_ AUTOBIOGRAPHY _Of the above_, From 1809 to 1881, _Inclusive_. * * * * * _All Rights of Re-production reserved_ * * * * * Lowestoft: G. S. Cook, Nelson Printing Works. [Picture: Photograph of George Bickers] THE writer of these pages was born at Laxfield, a village in the County of Suffolk, on the 16th day of January, 1809, the forty-eighth year of our good King George the Third’s happy reign. That eventful day was to me the commencement of a long and sometimes tedious journey: oftimes I have had to encounter great perils and dangers, but out of all the Lord hath delivered me. That eventful day witnessed the closing career of a great British General, Sir John Moore, at Corunna, a seaport of Spain, whither he had gone to take the command of the English forces, in order, if possible, to relieve that unhappy country, then being sorely harassed by the armies of Napoleon I., under the command of the Duke of Dalmatia (Marshall Soult), but the campaign proved a failure, resulting in the death of the Commander-in-Chief, and the re-embarkation of the troops, with a loss of about eight hundred of our countrymen, Soult being more than a match for the valour of British arms on that memorable and trying occasion. But France was destined to be humbled, and six years later on, Napoleon and his generals felt the weight of British prowess at Waterloo. I was the second son of my parents, Benjamin and Charlotte, poor, but industrious people, my father being an agricultural labourer: and, having but a slender income, yet felt a wish their children should acquire a little education, which might prove useful to them in their future stations in life under which they might be called.