1829.} Twelve Years’ Military Adventure. 159 
Our author had the good fortune to be born when that delectabie system 
prevailed in the army of giving commissions to boys at school—the 
remnant of a worse system under which old ladies were captains of 
horse, maids of honour received pay as ensigns of grenadiers, and 
which enabled Serjeant Kite to enlist l'enfant du régiment of a week old, 
whom he benevolently fathered, and to enter him on the roll as “ absent 
on furlough.” Being one of six sons, and having been endowed by nature 
with “shoulders of requisite breadth, and a head of suitable thickness,” 
he was devoted to the military profession, and, at nine years old, a com- 
mission was obtained for him. Soon afterwards, the Duke of York’s 
regulations, which abolished that absurd practice, were passed, and the 
young soldier retired on half-pay. The mischief, however, he says, was 
done ; and he throws all the blame of having been an incorrigible dunce 
at school upon the fatal circumstance of having borne his Majesty’s 
commission at too early an age. As he would learn nothing at Win- 
chester, he was transplanted to Woolwich, where he mde some better 
progress, and, in the ripeness of time, was sent as a cadet to India. The 
incidents which occur upon a voyage to India are neither so many, nor 
so varied, that they are very well worth describing ; and our author, 
determined that the irksomeness of the reality shall not infect his narra- 
tion, passes them over very lightly. His account of the company usually 
found on board such vessels is amusing and characteristic :— 
“ The generality of our society on board was respectable, and some of its 
members were men of education and talent. Excepting that there was no lady 
of the party, it was composed of the usual materials to be found at the cuddy- 
table of an outward bound Indiaman. First, there was a puisne judge, in- 
trenched im all the dignity of a dispenser of Jaw to his majesty’s loving 
subjects beyond the Cape, with a Don’t tell me kind of face, a magisterial air, 
and dictatorial manner, ever more ready to lay down the law, than to lay 
down the lawyer. Then, there was a general officer appointed to the staff in 
India, in consideration of his services on Wimbledon Common and at the 
Horse Guards, proceeding to teach the art military to the Indian army—a man 
of gentlemanly but rather pompous manners ; who, considering his simple nod 
equivalent to the bows of half a dozen subordinates, could never swallow a 
glass of wine at dinner without lumping at least that number of officers or 
‘civilians in the invitation to, join him, while his aid-de-camp practised the 
same airs among the cadets. Then, there was a proportion of civilians and 
Indian officers returning from furlough or sick certificate, with patched-up 
livers, and lank countenances, from which two winters of their native climate 
had extracted only just sufficient sun-beams to leave them of a dirty lemon 
colour. Next, there were a few officers belonging to detachments of king’s 
troops proceeding to join their regiments in India, looking, of course, with 
some degree of contempt on their brethren in arms, whose rank was bounded 
by the longitude of the Cape; but condescending to patronize some of the 
most gentlemanly of the cadets. These, with a free mariner, and no incon- 
siderable sprinkling of writers, cadets, and assistant-surgeons, together with 
the officers of the ship, who dined at the captain’s table, formed a party of 
about twenty-five.” 
The author is one of those practical philosophers who, being con- 
vinced that to enjoy life is the true end of living, determine on being 
as comfortable as they can in whatever situation they find themselves. He 
looks always on the bright side of events; when any thing disagreeable 
happens, he leaps over it—passes it as a thing to be endured, but not 
talked about~—and hurries to something more pleasant. He is no 
grumbling traveller—wonders that any body else can grumble—says the 
