My adventures during the late war

MY ADVENTURES DURING THE LATE WAR
1804-14





A NARRATIVE OF SHIPWRECK, CAPTIVITY ESCAPES FROM FRENCH PRISONS, AND SEA SERVICE IN 1804-14 BY DONAT HENCHY O’BRIEN CAPT. R.N. Edited by CHARLES OMAN FELLOW OF ALL SOULS COLLEGE AND DEPUTY PROFESSOR OF MODERN HISTORY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD NEW EDITION, ILLUSTRATED WITH A PREFACE, NOTES, AND BIOGRAPHY OF THE AUTHOR LONDON EDWARD ARNOLD 1902 All rights reserved.

While engaged during the last ten years in the task of mastering the original authorities for the history of the Napoleonic wars, I have had to peruse many scores of diaries, autobiographies, and journals of the British military and naval officers who were engaged in the great struggle. They vary, of course, in interest and importance, in literary value, and in the power of vivid presentation of events. But they have this in common, that they are almost all very difficult to procure. Very few have been reprinted; indeed, I believe that the books of Lord Dundonald, Kincaid, John Shipp, Gleig, and Mercer are well nigh the only ones which have passed through a second edition. Yet there are many others which contain matter of the highest interest, not only for the historical student, but for every intelligent reader. From among these I have made a selection of ten or a dozen which seem to me well worth republishing.
Among these is the present volume—the narrative of the three escapes of Donat O’Brien from French captivity, and of his subsequent services in the Mediterranean during the last years of the great French war. I imagine that no prisoner—not excluding Baron Trenck himself—ever made three such desperate dashes for liberty as did this enterprising Irish midshipman. It is fortunate that he found the leisure, and had the skill, to narrate all his adventures. He had a talent for minute description, a wonderful memory, and a humorous way of looking on the world which will remind the reader of the spirit of Captain Marryat’s naval heroes.