Page:Life memoirs & pedigree of Thomas Hamilton Dickson.pdf/7

 My father, in a fit of rage, seeing how thing, were, went off and enlisted in the King's Body Guards, where he soon rose to the rank sergeant. This body were all picked men, and consisted of one hundred and twenty.—My father was six feet three inches in height, and was as handsome a man as any in the neighbourhood. This corps was broke by William Pitt, then prime minister, and replaced by lighter men and horses. This took place about the end of May, and as the weather was very sultry, he considered it would be better to walk in the night than in the day. As he entered one of the English towns in the morning, he came in contact with a recruiting sergeant, and a number of fifer and drummer boys; the sergeant, desired him to show his discharge, which he would, in all probability, have destroyed, and then taken him up as a deserter. My father said, "most noble captain, you have risen too early this morning, and by mistake have put on the sergeant's coat instead of your own." From words they came to blows; but my father being a man of great physical powers, overcame him. During the struggle, the authorities received information of the affair, and dispatched officers, who seized him ere he was aware, and before the battle was terminated, who lodged him in jail, to his chagrin and remorse, not on account of what he did at the time, but rather in consequence of what happened afterwards. He was friendless, and a stranger in that part of the country—so he lived as hungry and solitary as a mouse in a church. After he had