I met with nothing worthy of mention until I reached London. I found the gentleman out to whom the colonel, in Bristol, had recommended me. I was very well treated by him, and highly recommended by several gentlemen who had relations in the service I had been engaged in; and they were pleased to see me. I got a card of a gentleman’s address (Mr. Thomas Shaw, 16 Woburn Place, Russell-square.) I went to his house, and found him at his office; as I was going up the steps he observed me from the window making an advance towards the office. When I knocked at the door he desired me to come in, and asked me my business. I told him I had been in Portugal with a brother of his, who ranked as Captain Charles Shaw, Captain of the Light Company, of the British battalion under Colonel Hodges; and that I had been corporal in his company for more than two years. In answer to his inquiry I told him my name was Thomas Knight. “Corporal Knight!” said he, looking at me very hard, and asking me a great many questions, which I answered. I mentioned that I had been out with his brother in the Portuguese service; the first time I met him was on board the ship going to Spithead. Mr. Shaw asked me if I would drink a glass of wine; and he ordered the man to bring up a bottle out of the cellar; he poured out a glass, and I drank to his health and to that of the gentlemen in company with him, and also to his absent brother, Brigadier-General Shaw, whom I had left in Portugal. He replied, “Bravo, Corporal!”
After some little time elapsed, Mr. Shaw brought me to the map he had in the office, and asked me if I understood it, I replied that I did. He then pointed his finger to a certain place on the map, and asked me if I knew its name. I answered that, it was a street called Rue Tendemoza. He pointed to another part of the map and asked if I knew what that was. I told him that was the convent of St. Lazarus. I then informed him I had brought his brother out of the field, when he was wounded, in three different engagements; and that the last wound he received to my knowledge was at Bomfine, on the 18th August 1832, where I saw him wounded by shot, in both calves of his legs. We held no farther conversation about him, as it was only on my own affairs. I told him I had been very severely wounded myself, and the captain wished me (if I felt inclined) to remain in the country until it was all over. We used to meet together in Oporto, and often have a chat together—he with crutches and me with a walking-stick to help me along; and that I was unfit for service, being very stiff-kneed. He asked me if I was anything of a scholar, I replied I was. He then said “I have thought of getting up some work to enable you to live during your old age.” He then handed me some sheets of foolscap paper and told me to write an account of my adventures.
He remarked that it would take too long for me to write it, and that he would instruct his clerk to write the account for me after office hours; so after a short time I went to the clerk (who was a short-hand writer), for eight or ten evenings for about three hours each evening, in a private apartment. After that period Mr. Shaw made me a present of five pounds, recommending me not to get tipsy, as he said soldiers were very apt to do so. I thanked him for his kindness, and assured him that I would profit by his good advice.
When I had completed my history he had 750 copies printed, which I sold about London; and now, many years after, I have again had recourse to this method of earning a trifle to support myself, for at the present time my wants are not many, my means are equally small, and now that I am so old, being 73 years, I am quite unable to do any kind of work, and in closing this narrative must ask my kind readers not to criticise too closely my little book, for my hand is not so steady nor my head so clear as they were when I stood in the ranks, in the never to be forgotten battle of Waterloo!
In conclusion, I hope this account of my life and adventures may prove interesting to my readers, and that they may have the gratification of feeling that in buying my little book, they have contributed their mite towards smoothing the rough path of life of the declining days of one of the few still surviving veterans who fought for their country under Wellington.
Thomas Knight.
R. Bell, Printer, 97 Little Collins Street East, Melbourne.
Transcriber’s Note:
Page 4, “friends I had been living him,” changed to read “friends I had been living with,” as in the 1867 printing of this book.