185

CHAPTER XXI.

To America and back--Napoleon's escape from Elba 194

CHAPTER XXII.

Waterloo 204

CHAPTER XXIII.

Paris--Matrimony 217

CHAPTER XXIV.

Return to Great Britain 227

CHAPTER XXV.

Family matters 233

CHAPTER XXVI.

Pensioned and Discharged 245

THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SERGEANT WILLIAM LAWRENCE.

CHAPTER I.

Lawrence's Parentage -- Birth and early training -- Apprenticed
-- He falls out with his master -- Is beaten and resolves to
leave -- A few words to masters in general -- Finds a companion
-- Precautions against being forgotten too soon -- To Poole _via_
Wareham -- Engages for a voyage to Newfoundland -- Recaptured and
sent back, but escapes again on the way -- Receives some good
advice, and starts to Dorchester, picking up some fresh company
on the way.

As I have been asked to furnish as complete an account as I am able of
my own life, and it is usual when people undertake to do so to start
at as early a period as possible, I will begin with my parentage. My
father and mother were of humble means, living in the village of
Bryant's Piddle, in the county of Dorset. My father had been formerly
a small farmer on his own account in the same village, but having a
large and hungry family to provide for, he became reduced in
circumstances, and was obliged to give up his farm, and work as a
labourer.

I was born in 1791, and, being one of seven children, found myself
compelled at a very early age to seek my own livelihood as best I
could, so that I had not much opportunity for education, though I
cannot say that I thought that much hardship at the time, being fonder
of an open-air life. I was employed for some time in frightening the
birds off the corn, for which I received the sum of twopence a day;
after which I was advanced to sixpence a day as ploughboy, in which
situation I remained until I was fourteen years of age. My father then
obtained twenty pounds from a friend, with which he apprenticed me to
Henry Bush, a builder living at Studland, a village in the same
county, for seven years, the agreement being that my master was to
find me in food, lodging, and clothes, and I was to