CAMP AT BAGSIIOT HEATH. 65 



directions to cut open the boot of the poor feUow, to 

 prevent the great pain of drawing it off, Sir D. Dundas 

 came up to inquire what was the matter. On being told 

 of the accident, and that it was thought necessary to cut 

 the boot, he exclaimed to the Doctor, " Sir, they are my 

 boots ; they are my boots, and they shall not be cut." 

 To explain this order Sir David was colonel of the 7th 

 Light Dragoons, and supplied the privates with boots. 



What a sad contrast Windsor Castle between the year 

 1798, when I first knew it, and when I was quartered 

 there with the Guards in 1817. In the former period 

 it was the residence of the finest royal family in Europe. 

 How Avell I recollect when 5^ou might see numerous 

 officers of every corps riding from the encampment in 

 their splendid uniforms (at that time ornamented with 

 much gold and silver lace) to walk on the terrace at 

 Windsor. Here the king and queen, the handsome 

 princesses, some of the princes, a numerous suite of 

 courtiers, and the nobility and gentry of the neighbour- 

 hood promenaded on the Sunday evening. tempora 

 mutantur ! In 1817, not any branch of the royal family 

 resided there, excepting the good old king, who was 

 then deranged. A small table was kept for equerries in 

 waiting, and everything appeared gloomy and silent 

 around this noble edifice. Death about this period had 

 begun to thin the ranks of the royal family ; and what 

 a solemn and melancholy scene I witnessed the winter 

 of that year, when it was my duty as Colonel of the 

 Guards at the Castle to receive the body of the Princess 

 Charlotte, escorted by a detachment of the Blues from 

 Claremont. It was about one o'clock, a fine moonlight 

 night in the month of November, when the cortege 

 arrived, and when I saw the coffin taken out of the 



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