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school, but made little progress in his other studies.
When he had been five years at these schools, he was honourably discharged, with sixpence and a Bible, the usual presents made to those who had done their duty in these charity schools upon their leaving. He was then thirteen years of age, and continued with his father a year, sometimes employed as an errand boy, at others in selling milk or apples.
In June, 1797, he enlisted with a party of soldiers recruiting at Norwich, as a drummer, into the Forty-eighth Northamptonshire Regiment, then lying at Huntingdon. He joined the Regiment, and shortly afterwards returned with it to Norwich, where it remained four months. It then proceeded to Chelmsford, in Essex, where it lay twenty-eight days. They afterwards marched to Worcester, and were completed to the war establishment, after a delay of six months.
A squadron, consisting of a thousand men, including the Forty-eighth Regiment, then embarked on board the "Calcutta" man of war, a sixty-four gun ship, and sailed for Gibraltar.
On the voyage they fell in with a French convoy, on its way to Ireland, and cleared out for action, but the French declined an engagement, and continued
