24 FEB 192! NOV 15 '21 univ. 1.00 W7 1808. FIELD MARSHAL HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS THE DUKE OF YORK, COMMANDER IN CHIEF, &c. &c. &c. SIR, PLACED in the army, and honoured by your protection, I have ever considered that the utmost energies I was capable of exerting should be directed to obtain your approbation. Private feelings would therefore have induced me to dedicate my work to your Royal Highness, had you not, Sir, a claim on every military production. A claim not arising only from your high situation, but founded on the universally acknowledged fact, that, under your auspices, the British Army has attained a character which was never outrivalled in the most brilliant æra of the English History. When your Royal Highness assumed the command, abuses had disordered the service. Your judicious regulations, impartially executed, instantly checked their pernicious influ ence, ence, and soon recovered to the profession that respect which for a time had been denied, finally establishing it on the basis of honour, emulation, and merit. This language, Sir, strictly represents the general sentiment of your country, whose honest eulogies must be much more gratifying than all the panegyrics which adulation could indite. To you, Sir, must also be attributed those arrangements and that impulse of zeal, which, notwithstanding the severe losses in the war, placed at the disposal of government, to carry on a ninth campaign, the force which composed the Egyptian army; an army which, whilst manifesting so conspicuously that national valour, which your Royal Highness has so often witnessed, and, animated by your presence, appropriates to itself a celebrity for unrivalled discipline. I am aware, Sir, that I have undertaken a very difficult task, and with anxiety await the result; yet I trust, that if in the enquiry I have pursued, some opinions may appear indiscreet, your Royal Highness's candour will prefer a work on such a subject, when written with freedom, rather than one circumscribed by restraint. My object has been to write truths, to avoid flattery or calumny; nor should a statement of some facts introduced into this History be imputed to the latter motive. If the narrative be approved, I shall indeed feel pride in having faithfully recorded the events of this illustrious campaign; and at all events I shall hope, that zeal will excuse, in some favourable degree, any want of ability. With every sentiment of gratitude, and with the ardent hope that your Royal Highness may long live to command the British army, and see its glories extended, I remain Your Royal Highness's Most devoted Servant, ROBERT WILSON, PREFACE. |