cost me seventeen hundred and sixty
pounds. The regulation price of a
lieutenabcy is eleven hundred and sixty pounds,
and by Act of Parliament, as well as by
the Queen's Regulations for the Army, to
give more than the sum laid down for any
commission, is to be guilty of a
misdemeanour; nevertheless, there is hardly ever
a commission sold in the army for regulation
price: double that sum being in many cases
given as a bribe to the senior officer. For
the seventeen hundred and sixty pounds laid
out by my father in my commissions, I
received an income of one hundred and
sixty-two pounds per annum; but this was
nothing like enough even to pay my monthly
mess-bills. I was not extravagant; but, on
the contrary, was always careful of my
money; and yet my actual barrack-yard
expenses—that is, all I spent when actually
present with my regiment—never came to
less than fifty pounds a-month, and few of
my companions spent as little as I did. Thus
it will be seen that for any, save men with
a certain income, to dream of entering a
cavalry regiment would be utter madness.
In fact, the means which a candidate for such
regiments has at his command, are always
ascertained at the Horse Guards before the
nomination is made. In infantry regiments
the expense of living is not so great, I believe;
although even young officers in that branch
of the service require from two hundred to
three hundred pounds a-year beyond their
pay, to enable them to live like their
companions and to keep free from debt. In the
regiment in which my lot was cast there were
only two officers who had no private means;
these were the quarter-master and the adjutant.
Both these gentlemen had risen from the
ranks; and, as each was in the receipt of better
pay on account of their situations than the
other subalterns; as the colonel excused their
attendance at the mess on account of the
expense; and as neither were ever asked or
expected to join in any subscription to balls,
hounds, the regimental-drag, races, steeple-
chases, mess-dinners, or other extravagancies,
they managed to make the ends meet.

The marketing for promotion which
frequently takes place, would, in the
commercial world, be called by an ugly name.
About four years after I had purchased my
lieutenancy, having been then six years in
the service, an opportunity occurred of
getting my captaincy. I was not the senior
subaltern, there being two before me on the
list. One of these was the riding-master—a
gentleman who had an annuity which enabled
him to live with tolerable comfort, but neither
he nor his friends had the requisite amount
of capital to purchase a troop. The other
officer senior to me had just lost his money at
Newmarket, and was therefore obliged to
withdraw his name from the list of purchasers.
Being third-lieutenant, and only having been
six years in the army, I was thought
particularly fortunate in being able to obtain my
troop; and therefore the captain who wished
to retire, determined to make me pay
highly to induce him to do so. I had heard
that he had given five thousand five hundred
pounds for his troop, the regulation price
being only three thousand three hundred
and twenty-eight pounds, and offered him
what he had paid. But the price he asked
was six thousand guineas. This sum I
thought too much; however, after a great
deal of haggling and bargaining, I agreed
to pay him six thousand pounds, and to
take an old screw of a charger off his hands
for a hundred pounds extra. The sale
was duly made, and, in a few days, my name
appeared in the Gazette as captain by
purchase. Once more, by virtue alone of my
father's long purse, I passed over two officers
much senior to myself. Not once but twenty
times have I been present, and still oftener
consulted, when bargains of a like nature
were struck between my brother officers.
Nor have I told the whole tale. When a
promotion takes place, not only has the
bargain to be struck between the officer actually
desiring to sell out and him wishing to purchase,
but the lower grades, who gain a step
by the move, have to furnish their quota of
the sum required. Thus, in my own case,
although I was responsible to the retiring
captain for the whole six thousand pounds,
I had to negociate with the cornet who was
to succeed me as lieutenant, in order to
induce him to contribute a certain amount
for his own promotion, which my purchased
step occasioned.

Shortly after I obtained my troop, a
practical illustration of what our system of army
promotion leads to, occurred in my own case.
The head quarters of the regiment I belonged
to were stationed at a garrison town in the
south of Ireland; and, as it happened to be
the season when there are no field-days, several
of the officers were absent on leave. In
those days, we had only six troops in each
cavalry regiment, and, of those belonging to
our corps, four were stationed at different
out-quarters. The colonel was travelling on
the continent, and the major, who in his
absence commanded the regiment, was
suddenly taken unwell, and proceeded at once
to his father's house in the neighbourhood.
I being the only captain present at head
quarters—and it not being thought advisable
to recall any of the other captains from
their respective troops at the out-posts—
was for upwards of a month in command
of the regiment. During this time, I, of
course, was over all the officers present with
the corps, amongst whom were the riding-
master and adjutant. The latter had been
a dragoon, and had risen to the rank of
sergeant-major, six years before I was born;
even the commission, which by long and good
service he had obtained, was awarded him
four years before I entered the army. Yet I,