Author embarks for Rosetta. Dangerous passage of the bar at the mouth of the Nile. Rosetta hospital. Author dangerously ill. Death of his comrade, &c. Inundation of the Nile. Skin bottles. Surrender of Alexandria. Dress of the Sepoys and Egyptian peasants. Manner of eating their meals. Mahomedan mosques. Gun fired at mid-day in Cairo by the rays of the sun. Explosion of a powder chest kills several of the 13th foot. Remarks on the state of mind in which many died. Produce and manner of cultivating the Delta. Immense heaps of grain. Wretchedness of the peasantry. Extracts from Sir R. Wilson and Dr. Clarke, on the diseases and plagues of Egypt. The unavoidable evils of War. Author leaves Rosetta, and sails for England.
Arrival at Cork. Marches to Kilkenny. Proceeds to London and admitted an out-pensioner of Chelsea. Arrives in Glasgow. Retrospect of his military life. Distressing state of mind. Obtains peace of conscience by hearing the gospel in Albion-street Chapel, and joins the church under the care of Dr. Wardlaw.
Consists of an Address to readers in general, and to those in the army in particular, of what the Author wishes them to learn from the Narrative.
CHAPTER I.
Dear Pastor,
I shall now, according to the best of my ability, attempt to gratify the wish you several years since expressed, that I would arrange into one connected narrative, the various particulars I then communicated to you, of my previous life, and the exercises of my mind; its various workings, and conflicts, until the period when I was brought to the knowledge of Jesus, as the only and all-sufficient Saviour.
In drawing up this account of myself, my motive is, to record the loving-kindness of the Lord to me a sinner; and if you deem it proper to be brought before the public in any shape, the only object I would have in view, is the good of my fellow sinners, particularly such as have been, or are, in situations of life, similar to those I have been in, or have experienced similar exercises of mind.