Excerpt from Military Mite to the Mountain of Literature: Or the Rhymes of a Red Coat

Most of the fugitive pieces it contains, though never before published, were written many years ago some with, and others without an aim, save that of indulging an idle propensity. In point of morality they are not what he would now wish them to be but even on that score, he trusts they express nothing objec tionable. They are, as the title page intimates, the production! Of a soldier; one who, though far advanced in years, is still in the military service of his country, into which he entered before he had attained his fourteenth year. In that service he did, for for several years, occupy a much loftier position than he does now, but he was raised to that position under peculiar circum stances, such as he trusts will never more occur in the country of his adoption and though he may have some cause to complain at being obliged, by no fault of his own, to descend from a higher to a lower grade in his profession, he does not pretend to possess greater abilities than the generality of his present comrades, nor to have received a better education. In truth, many, very many of them, young men too, have a decided advantage over him in these respects and with the opportunities that are now afforded them, if they could be induced, by any means, to cultivate the to lents which God has given them, and devote those leisure hours, that, he regrets to say, are too frequently wasted in idleness and dissipation, to the improvement oi their minds, and the acquis tion of useful knowledge, the Army would send many soldiers back to their early friends, and the homes of their childhood, on the expiration of their ten years service, who would afterwards become, not only useful members of society, but a comfort and blessing to their aged parents, and an honor to the place of their nativity whose example would reflect credit on their former profession - increase its popularity, and attract more recruits to its ranks, than all the vicious lures of former years - the antici pated spoils of such cities as Delhi, or the more honorable ambi tion of gaining rewards and promotion, and winning, by deeds of valor, the proud distinction of being decorated with the Victoria cross of honor, by the hands of Her Most Gracious Majesty, or her successors.

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