Narrative of a Private Soldier in His Majesty's 92d Regiment of Foot NARRATIVE OF A PRIVATE SOLDIER IN HIS MAJESTY'S 92D REGIMENT OF FOOT. WRITTEN BY GEORGE BILLANY. DETAILING MANY CIRCUMSTANCES RELATIVE TO THE INSURRECTION IN IRELAND IN 1798; THE EXPEDITION TO HOLLAND IN 1799; AND THE EXPEDITION TO EGYPT IN 1801; AND GIVING A PARTICULAR ACCOUNT OF HIS RELIGIOUS HISTORY AND EXPERIENCE. WITH A PREFACE BY THE REV. RALPH WARDLAW, D. D. _First American edition._ PHILADELPHIA: PUBLISHED FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE UNITED FOREIGN MISSIONARY SOCIETY. 1822. PREFACE. Long prefaces to Narratives have seldom, I believe, the honour of being read through. If the Narrative possess interest, a tedious recommendation only detains the reader from his enjoyment; and if it possess none, it aggravates his disappointment.--I shall, therefore, be very brief. The subject of the following Memoir has been connected with the church under my pastoral care, nearly since its formation, in the year 1803:--and, from this, as well as from a circumstance in his religious history, which the reader will discover towards the close of the narrative, it may perhaps be thought, that my recommendations are, in some degree, dictated by feelings of partiality. I hope I shall never be so dead to Christian sensibility, as to feel nothing of the peculiar interest which the circumstance alluded to, is fitted to produce. Yet I may say with truth, that the very consciousness of this interest has made me the more jealous and scrupulous in giving the advice to publish; an advice which I never should have given, unless from a sincere conviction, that the Narrative is fitted both to please and to profit; to gratify curiosity, and, through the blessing of God, to impart instruction and spiritual benefit. The remarks of a private in the ranks, when he is a man of any shrewdness and observation, on the incidents that come within his notice, in the campaigns in which he is engaged, have in them a particular interest.--Whilst we are pleased with the degree of intelligence which they discover, we at the same time feel a satisfying confidence, that they contain 'a plain unvarnished tale;' unaffected by any temptation, either 'in aught to extenuate,' or 'to set down aught in malice.'