OF THE

LIFE AND SUFFERINGS

OF

WILLIAM B. LIGHTON.

(Minister of the Gospel.)

WHO WAS A SOLDIER, BOUND FOR LIFE IN THE BRITISH ARMY.
AND IN WHICH IS CONTAINED AN ACCOUNT OF ITS CHARACTER,
AND THE BARBAROUS METHOD PRACTISED IN PUNISHING
THEIR SOLDIERS; WITH AN INTERESTING ACCOUNT OF
HIS ESCAPE FROM HIS REGIMENT, HIS CAPTUKE,
IMPRISONMENT, TRIAL, AND CONDEMNATION TO
DEATH; HIS SUBSEQUENT SUFFERINGS, AND
FINAL ESCAPE FROM CAPTIVITY, AND FROM
THE BRITISH DOMINIONS.

WRITTEN BY HIMSELF.

"Quis talia fando temperet a lacrymas?"-Virgil-i. e.
"Who can refrain from tears at the relation of such things?"
"Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? Behold and see, if
there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me.'

Jeremiah.

REVISED EDITION-EMBELLISHED WITH ENGRAVINGS.

Concord, N. .

PUBLISHED BY THE AUTHOR.

Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1836, By WILLIAM B. LIGHTON,

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of New-Hampshire.

Wiscordia distorical

E45

'L71

161,455

MAR 1 1910

PREFACE.

Many of the virtuous and the good whose lives have been distinguished for usefulnesss have contributed to the literature of the world by publishing their biographies; thereby promoting the cause of truth, morality, and religion, and perpetuating their memories among the living. Though the writer may shine with

far inferior lustre in the scale of intellectual and moral greatness to many who have written; yet, he would meekly present to the Public a narrative of his young and eventful career; a career, which has been marked with some of the most remarkable occurrences, and which are not less interesting from having been suffered at so early an age. To the merits of these assertions the impartial reader is left to judge.

The writer trusts that he possesses nothing of assumptive arrogance, nor the work any thing of fictitious novelty. It is a plain unvarnished statement of real facts, as they have occurred, and of sufferings as they have been endured. The reader then must pardon its errors; and rather then pierce it with a dagger of criticism, he will drop his mace, and cover all its faults with a mantle of mercy.

The object of writing it will be obtained if it shall exhibit the goodness of God-correct the evil passions of the heart--enforce paren

tal obedience-promote generous sentimentselevate the standard of morality, and purify the the taste of the youth, to whom it is most sincerely dedicated.

It was not originally the design of the author to publish his narrative at so early a period of his life; but to have withheld it from the world until (if he lived) he was further advanced in years, or have left it in manuscript to be published after his decease. But the ardent solicitude felt by his bereaved and afflicted Parents, who has for a number of years suffered severe mental anxiety and grief, from the authors sudden separation from them in the bud of early youth, and his being conveyed away to a foreign land,ignorant of the dangers aud sufferings to which he was exposed, probably never to meet them again on the shores of time; and the earnest importunate desire expressed in their letters to have it immediately put to the press, when they learned its general events by a correspondence; is a request too powerful in its claims not to be acceded too with sentiments of childlike affection and gratitude. Added to this is the conviction that the events embodied in the work, are of sufficient interest to justify its publication.

The author feels that all his sufferings have arisen from disobedience to his Parents, and a reckless spirit of adventure :-he would therefore write this as a warning to the rising generation, hoping it may prove a check to the virulent passions of the young and thoughtles and,