The Secret Dispatch; or, The Adventures of Captain Balgonie

OR,
THE ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN BALGONIE.
JAMES GRANT,
AUTHOR OF ROMANCE OF WAR, SCOTTISH CAVALIERS, ETC. ETC.
NEW EDITION.
LONDON: CHAPMAN AND HALL, 193, PICCADILLY.
PROFESSOR SIR JAMES Y. SIMPSON, BART.,
M.D., D.C.L., &C., &C.,
THIS TALE, FROM RUSSIAN MILITARY HISTORY, IS INSCRIBED, AS A MEMORIAL OF ADMIRATION AND SINCERE REGARD.
PREFACE.
I need scarcely inform the reader of history, that most of the events narrated in the subsequent pages actually occurred in the manner stated; and I have done much to soften, or subdue, the actual barbarity of the story, though such barbarity was consonant enough to the days of her, whose lust of power and contempt of all moral restraint won her the name of the Semiramis of the North.
For the betrothal of the young Lieutenant of the Valikolutz Infantry to his cousin, it may be mentioned that a dispensation was necessary, as the Russian Church—like the Catholic—forbids all marriages within four degrees of relationship.