Narrative of the Life and Travels of Serjeant B——

by Robert Butler

When I went next morning to inquire how he had rested, he told me he had been very much pained, and appeared to be going very fast. I spent as much of the day with him as my duty would permit, and when I went at night with his drop of punch, which we used to make for him, and which he preferred to the hospital wine, I found him somewhat easier; but he said to me, he felt he had but a very short time to live; so I took an affectionate farewell of him, but in the morning he was still living. He told me he had been much worse during the night, and had suffered great pain, and added, "that he had a desire to depart from a sinful heart, a wicked world, and a loathsome disease, and to be with Christ, where holiness dwells, where sin shall never enter, and where the inhabitants shall no more say, I am sick." So the Lord granted his petition, for he died that evening. "Lord enable me to live the life, that I may die the death, of the righteous, and that my last end may be like his!"

We remained in Masulipatam about four months, and I was very glad to hear when the route came for us to leave it; for it was not only intolerably hot, but when it blew, we were like to be suffocated with clouds of sand; and it was the worst place for provisions we had yet seen. The butcher meat was so very bad that we had it only once within our door all that time. But I would have been happy indeed had this march been to embark for Europe; for the regiment was getting daily more and more profligate and abominable! Here the papists laid a plot for destroying the protestants, but it was detected, and the ringleaders punished; and here, too, the men were shooting themselves, or one another, whenever the freak took them.

We had a young fellow of the name of Courtney, who shot two men with one ball in the open barrack room! one of them was a man belonging to the regiment, and the other a black man, who was in the barrack selling cloth for a livelihood. The white man had been impeaching Courtney with stealing something from him, which the other flatly denied, though falsely, (at least he was a noted thief,) and threatened to make him repent it; and in the course of a little time afterward, he took down his firelock, and pretended to be spunging her out, no one ever in the least suspecting him to be putting in a ball-cartridge out of his pouch; so he levelled her for the person whom he had just been threatening, and sent the contents through his body, and they lodged also in that of the black man. Both of them died in a very short time. He was immediately taken into confinement, and in a short time was sent to Madras, where he was tried, convicted, and executed. But, to show the hardened character of this faithful servant of Satan, I may mention, that one of the soldiers asked him, before he left the regiment, "if he was not sorry for what he had done?" to which he replied, "that what he was most sorry for was, that he could not get an hour's fowling in the barracks before he went away!" What think you of this in a youth of nineteen years of age! I doubt not but it will strike the mind of the reader at once, what a contrast there was between him and my dear deceased friend just now mentioned; but the "tares and the wheat must grow together until the harvest," when an eternal separation shall take place; for those of similar dispositions shall then come together, never, never more to be separated! Oh! comforting to think that there shall not be one sinner in the vast congregation of the righteous. For the righteous who have here the image of God partially restored, shall then "shine as the sun" in the kingdom of their father.

As I have been speaking of shooting, I must mention one other circumstance before I leave this bloody subject, which is of the wonderful kind; for in the former case, we see or hear of one man killing two of his fellow-creatures with one ball; now I am going to tell you of another that had two balls through him and yet lived!—

Our men were in general very profligate with the native women, and one of them having a quarrel with his black concubine, was resolved to give her the effectual cure for a bad wife; and, to accomplish his purpose, he put two ball-cartridges into his firelock, and laid her quietly out of the way, until an opportunity would present itself to shoot her; and when she made her appearance, while he was in the act of raising the gun, one of his comrades, who knew of his diabolical design, made an attempt to wrest the firelock from him, but, in the scuffle, some of their feet touching the trigger, the firelock exploded, and both of the balls went through his body. This is the most wonderful accident of this kind I have ever known, for this man was at his duty in about six weeks afterwards! And the wonder lies chiefly in considering that the balls entered his belly and came out at his back.

There was a black nabob also made away with himself here. He was sent down the country to the charge of our regiment for not paying his tribute; but, laying this treatment very much to heart, he fell into a state of melancholy, and put an end to his existence by means of a knife, having given the guard that was over him a wedge of gold the day before.

In giving this sad picture of the wickedness of the regiment, some of my readers may think I have been guilty of exaggeration. They may say, we have heard of soldiers being given to drinking and swearing, and all manner of debauchery; but surely when you tell us that they were given to such things as shooting themselves, or one another, it must certainly be one of those extraordinary stories that travellers are so often accused of telling, in order to excite one's astonishment. But I can assure you I have related nothing but facts, and many more I could give you as horrible as those above mentioned. Though I have little inclination for the task, I will enter a little more into the subject, pointing out some of the circumstances which brought about this deplorable state of things, and illustrate the progress of sin by one or two individual examples which came under my own notice. Should any of my readers be touched to the quick by any thing I shall write; that is, should they trace in the characters I may bring forward any resemblance to their own, let them not turn away from comparing likenesses. If you are still under the power of sin, you are the enemy of God, and carry about with you the same principle of depravity which operated in these men, and produced such woful effects. Therefore, "be not high-minded, but fear." "For as in water face answers to face, so does the heart of man to man." On the other hand, if you have a scriptural ground of hope that you are turned from darkness to light, and from the dominion of sin and Satan unto God; you may be led by a consideration of these things to give him all the glory, for unto him it belongs. "For who maketh thee to differ from another, and what hast thou which thou didst not receive? therefore, glory not as thou hadst not received it." But rather let you and I join with the Psalmist, in a tribute of praise unto him who has delivered us from becoming the prey of the terrible, saying, "Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto thy name give the glory, for thy mercy, and for thy truth's sake."

I have already said, that upon the march we endured great fatigues, and also many inconveniences; but, when in barracks, a soldier's life in India is commonly very easy. They have not unfrequently eight or nine successive nights in bed; and, as the climate is generally very dry, they are not liable to get their arms or accoutrements often wet; and many of them likewise keep black boys to clean their things, take their victuals upon guard, and relieve them of other labours. They had consequently much spare time which they did not know how to get rid of; "and an idle man (says Mr. Bucke) is his own tormentor, always full of wants and complaints; while his inactivity often proves fatal both to his body and his mind. The worst importunities, the most embarrassing perplexities of business, are softness and luxury, compared with the incessant cravings of vacancy, and the unsatisfactory expedients of idleness." It is a saying among the Turks, that a "busy man is troubled with one devil, but the idle man with twenty."

The want of exercise for both body and mind therefore, and the natural consequences of a sultry climate upon the constitution, rendered a soldier's life in these circumstances truly a burden, for he was unable to walk abroad through the day because of the intense heat, and, moreover, the regiment was not unfrequently confined to barracks, on account of their misconduct. Now, if you consider such numbers of men as I formerly mentioned living together in one barrack-room, some sleeping away their time[6], and others lounging about the piazzas, not knowing what to do with themselves, you will not find much difficulty in perceiving that these poor creatures were eminently exposed to become the prey of him that "walketh about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour." Those, on the other hand, who were disposed to improve their time, by reading their Bibles[7], or conversing upon religious or useful subjects, were disturbed by the devil's agents, even those who "were led captive by him at his will;" for when these debauched beings, in their rambles, observed any of their comrades thus employed, they would make up a plot to annoy them, by singing obscene songs, cursing and swearing in their very ears, or by tumbling one another in a riotous manner upon these Sammy Hawks[8], as they were called. This species of persecution being frequently repeated, we may wonder the less that those who had not the root of the matter in them, were discouraged, and, in this time of temptation, fell away; and that, in process of time, instead of reading their Bibles, or conversing upon religious subjects, they preferred taking a cheerful glass together, which would at once relieve them from such assaults, enliven that gloom which brooded over their minds, transport them in imagination to Glasgow[9], to see how the shuttle was flying, and afterwards to close the scene with their favourite song,

"Glasgow on the banks of the river Clyde."