Page:Life and Adventures of William Buckley.djvu/26

Rh, I determined to enlist as a soldier, and to win glorious laurels in the battle-field, taking my chances of becoming either a corporal, or a colonel,—I cared not which; neither did I very well understand the difference between the two positions, or the career of dangers, trials, and sufferings, upon which I was entering.

Acting upon these impulses, I enlisted in the Cheshire Militia, receiving ten guineas as a bounty, which sum I thought would prove inexhaustible; but, at the end of about a year, I took another bounty, having volunteered into the Fourth, or King's own Regiment of Foot, then laying at Horsham Barracks. The Regiment was commanded by a Lieutenant-Colonel Dixon, a very excellent officer, and in about six weeks after joining, we were ordered to embark for Holland, where His Royal Highness the Duke of York, at the head of the British army, was endeavouring to sustain himself against the French Republican forces. My Regiment was in the division commanded by the late Lieutenant-General the Earl of Chatham.

It is not the purpose of this narrative, to refer particularly to that period of my life, neither shall I attempt to give the details of the campaigns in Holland: suffice it to say, that in a battle fought in that country, our regiment suffered heavily, and that I was wounded, rather severely, in the right hand. Almost immediately after this action, the Fourth, with other corps, embarked for England, and were landed at Chatham, where we lay some time. Here I received another bounty for