Transcriber’s Note Italic text displayed as: _italic_ [Illustration: soldier sitting] RECOLLECTIONS OF THE EVENTFUL LIFE OF A SOLDIER. BY THE LATE JOSEPH DONALDSON, SERGEANT IN THE NINETY-FOURTH SCOTS BRIGADE. ‘I will a round unvarnish’d tale deliver— Of moving accidents by flood and field, Of hair-breadth ’scapes i’ the imminent deadly breach, And with it all my travel’s history.’ SHAKSPEARE. ‘The romance of real life certainly goes beyond all other romances.’ MISS EDGEWORTH. NEW EDITION. LONDON AND GLASGOW: RICHARD GRIFFIN & COMPANY. 1859. INTRODUCTORY NOTICE. The ensuing narrative was originally published in three successive volumes, entitled respectively,—‘RECOLLECTIONS OF THE EVENTFUL LIFE OF A SOLDIER’—‘THE WAR IN THE PENINSULA’—AND ‘SCENES AND SKETCHES IN IRELAND.’ Although these volumes were eminently successful, the form in which they were brought out rendered them accessible to only a comparatively small portion of the community. They are now collected into one volume, and published at a price which brings the work within the reach of all classes of people. The narrative, from its outset to its close in 1814, embraces a period of about twenty-one years, fifteen of which relate to the author’s boyhood, and the remaining six to his career in the army. The circumstance of the work having been published anonymously will account for the scrupulous care with which he has avoided making any such allusions as might be calculated to draw aside the veil of his incognito. In this Edition, however, the author’s name, the number of his regiment, and the rank he held in it, are given; the names of places, so far as they could be ascertained, and of individuals, so far as was deemed prudent, which were left blank in the early Edition, have been supplied in this—but in other respects the original text has been preserved. The only part of the soldier’s story which begets a feeling of disappointment is its abrupt termination. The vicissitudes of his subsequent career might have formed an interesting, though melancholy, sequel to the present volume. The few particulars we have gathered refer chiefly to that period of his life.