During the trial, which lasted thirteen days, I was exceedingly harassed, and my feelings were worked up to a state bordering on frenzy. There was a host against me, and I had not a soul to advise me how to proceed. I stood alone and unaided, with a limited education, to rebut the whole mass of evidence adduced against me.
The time necessarily occupied in sending the proceedings of the court-martial to my native country, and the long period which elapsed before its return, were spent in the bosom of domestic bliss, where I found refuge from the storm. The contemplation of my recent fall would at times sink me in gloomy despair, and it was my wife only who could divert my mind from useless forebodings, and whisper in my ear sweet hopes of better days to come. I removed some miles from the regiment, as I could not bear the commiserating remarks of the soldiers as they passed me, which only served to plunge me deeper in the vortex of despondency. From these motives I was induced to remove from that station where my profession had been my pride and boast, to where I should not meet the pitying countenances of those brave fellows with whom I had often shared in glory, and where I could, unmolested and undisturbed, think of the future, and compose my feelings. On leaving the regiment, and passing by the houses of the officers, that hung on the rapid Ganges, my feelings can be better imagined than described. Need I be ashamed to confess that I felt the tear trickling down my cheek, and a weight at my heart that the utmost ingenuity of man cannot accurately describe. I could not help comparing my then forlorn situation with the day I looked back on the little white village spire out-topping the high poplars that reared their heads over the briar-woven grave of my mother, save that I had now one near and dear to me, and ever ready to share the cup of sorrow. Many of the men whom I had befriended and had got promoted, followed my boat on the banks of the river, wishing me every prosperity, till prudence bade them return to their lines. The feelings I experienced on this occasion are such as the tyrant soldier never knows, and never ought to know. These friendly greetings of the men gratified my pride, but only sunk my heart deeper in anguish. Scarcely were my feelings so composed as to reconcile me in some degree to my fate, when an event, the most dreadful and agonizing, and which of all others I was the least prepared for, happened to her on whom I had built my most felicitous hopes, when more halcyon days should visit our humble cot. I could have borne poverty with a smile of contentment; but this blow was vital, and at once dashed the flattering cup of hope from my lips. During my long and harassing trial, such was the anxiety of my wife, that a premature birth of a boy was the consequence. This had nearly deprived me of her who was my best friend and guide; but, by dint of great care and good nursing, she recovered, and was at this moment in all the health and beauty of twenty-two, and expected shortly to present me with another pledge of mutual love. A strange coincidence brought her good mother, brother, and sister to the station, neither of whom we could have expected, and we all waited the happy issue of this event. I cannot relate our preliminary proceedings and great anxiety. Suffice it that, on the following morning, having given birth, after twelve hours' protracted labour, to a beautiful boy, she was a corpse, having that morning completed her two-and-twentieth year. All my former misfortunes now rushed upon my distracted mind with tenfold force, and this last blow seemed to bereave me of all that on earth I could love; and my poor child, kissing the cold lips of his dead mother, and pathetically beseeching her to get up and speak to him, roused me to a full sense of my utter misery and woe. Neither his uncle nor his aunt could drag him from embracing the corpse of his dear mother; his cries were dreadful; and it was imagined, for some time after, that the dear boy's intellect had received a shock that was likely to prove lasting. He frequently wept bitterly, and would affectionately hug and kiss, a thousand times, any little thing that had been his mother's, preserving most carefully even little pieces of rag or paper that he knew had been hers. My poor mother-in-law scarcely ever spoke for the long period of six months, after this dreadful shock, but lay in a melancholy state of insensibility, not knowing even her little grandson, who would linger over her sick-bed for whole days together.
At this very crisis of my life the court-martial was communicated to me as having been confirmed in England, and I was directed to proceed to the Presidency of Fort William, preparatory to being sent home, to be placed on the half-pay.
This final sentence was communicated to me through the regiment, some few days after my wife's death, who was, therefore, spared this last pang. When the letter was delivered to me, I was sitting on a couch with my two motherless babes, one four years old, the other but a few days. On tracing the contents of the letter, when my eager eyes met the words "Dismissed the service," I could not repress the tear of anguish, nor refrain from indulging in the most unavailing grief. To wind up a military career like mine in this manner, was distressing indeed!
From the age of nine to forty-one, I had now been in the army—a period of thirty-two years. My services during that time are already before the reader. In the course of those services, I had received six matchlock-ball wounds:—
One through the forehead, just above my eyes, which has so impaired my sight, that I have been obliged to use glasses for some years past.
Two on the top of my head, from which have, at different times, been extracted sixteen pieces of bone. These two wounds, at every change of the weather, cause a most excruciating headache.
One in the fleshy part of the right arm.
One through the forefinger of my left hand. Of this finger I have entirely lost the use, and I am still obliged to nurse it with great care, several pieces of bone having been extracted from it, and some splinters, as I fear, being still remaining.
One in the fleshy part of the right leg.