THE LATE 



GEORGE FREDERICK BUXTON. 



THE London newspapers of October 1848 contained the 

 mournful tidings of the death, at St Louis on the Missis- 

 sippi, and at the early age of twenty-eight, of Lieutenant 

 George Frederick Ruxton, formerly of her Majesty's 89th 

 Regiment, the author of the following sketches. 



Many men, even in the most enterprising periods of our 

 history, have been made the subjects of elaborate biography, 

 with far less title to the honour than this lamented young 

 officer. Time was not granted him to embody in a perma- 

 nent shape a tithe of his personal experiences and strange 

 adventures in three quarters of the globe. Considering, 

 indeed, the amount of physical labour he underwent, and 

 the extent of the fields over which his wanderings spread, 

 it is almost surprising he found leisure to write so much. 

 At the early age of seventeen, Mr Ruxton quitted Sand- 

 hurst, to learn the practical part of a soldier's profession in 

 the civil wars of Spain. He obtained a commission in a 

 squadron of lancers then attached to the division of General 

 Diego Leon, and was actively engaged in several of the 

 most important combats of the campaign. For his marked- 

 gallantry on these occasions he received from Queen Isabella 

 II. the cross of the first class of the order of St Fernando, 

 an honour which has seldom been awarded to one so young. 

 On Ms return from Spain he found himself gazetted to a 



