{"product_id":"2940013740358","title":"Charles Sturt","description":"About the middle of May 1827 the ship _Mariner_ was forging eastward with\u003cbr\u003elong lunges driven by a strong cold wind under a wet dead sky: no one on\u003cbr\u003eboard without previous knowledge would have guessed that the bright land\u003cbr\u003eof their new life was then to the north of them.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eStanding by the port rail of the quarterdeck was one man who knew it; and\u003cbr\u003ewhose memories and forebodings were stirred by the knowledge. For him the\u003cbr\u003ewarm sunlight of Cape Town was fading to a pleasant dream, the sullen\u003cbr\u003erollers a depressing illusion of immobility and desolation, and the\u003cbr\u003esolitary albatross a symbol of life spent in ceaseless movement with an\u003cbr\u003euncertain goal and an unknown destiny.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThese things affected his thoughts and produced a mental depression which\u003cbr\u003ewas to recur more than once in later life.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe was a professional soldier--a captain of the 39th Regiment of\u003cbr\u003eFoot--and as he looked back to the west he reviewed the past and all that\u003cbr\u003ehe was leaving. His career as a soldier began when, at the age of\u003cbr\u003eeighteen years, he had, through the patronage of the Prince Regent, been\u003cbr\u003egazetted ensign in the 39th Regiment. Service in the Pyrenees against the\u003cbr\u003eFrench was followed by service in Canada against the Americans, soon\u003cbr\u003eended by the hurried recall of the regiment after Napoleon's escape from\u003cbr\u003eElba. As they arrived in France after Waterloo the regiment served as\u003cbr\u003epart of the army of occupation in France until the end of 1818.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe had had, therefore, five years of varied experience--the first two on\u003cbr\u003eservice under active warfare conditions, the last three on garrison duty.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFrom 1818 to 1825 the regiment was on duty in Ireland, without incident\u003cbr\u003eespecially affecting his personal career but involving long delay in\u003cbr\u003emilitary promotion. He was twenty-eight years old when he, at last,\u003cbr\u003ebecame Lieutenant; and, at thirty, he became Captain. Then, removed from\u003cbr\u003eIreland to Chatham, he was sent in charge of a detachment of the regiment\u003cbr\u003eas guard over convicts on this present voyage to New South Wales, which\u003cbr\u003ehad begun in December, 1826.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe remembered his boyhood and his family life. He could barely remember\u003cbr\u003ehis childhood in India as he had been, in his fifth year, sent with his\u003cbr\u003eelder sister to England to live with their mother's sisters. A happy\u003cbr\u003echildhood lasted until his fifteenth year when,, on his parents' return\u003cbr\u003eto England, he was sent to Harrow. Memories of his happy days with his\u003cbr\u003euncle Charles, who taught him the management of small boats; with his\u003cbr\u003esister Susan, with his cousin Isaac Wood, were clouded by the unhappiness\u003cbr\u003eand misfortunes of his father, Napier Sturt.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNapier Sturt was a judge in Bengal under the East India Company, and it\u003cbr\u003ewas shortly after his marriage that the prospects of easy wealth, which\u003cbr\u003ewas the main attraction to India, had been greatly reduced by the\u003cbr\u003eimpeachment of Warren Hastings. His second son, Charles, was born on 28th\u003cbr\u003eApril, 1795, in the, very month of Hastings' acquittal.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA large family--there were eight sons--unsuccessful speculation, failure\u003cbr\u003eof an Indian bank, gravely affected the economic position of the family\u003cbr\u003eand saddened the family life.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe remembered with quiet satisfaction that in respect of family and\u003cbr\u003eancestry he was, in the standard of those times, of \"good birth.\" The\u003cbr\u003eSturts and the Napiers were Dorsetshire county families of standing. But\u003cbr\u003ehe remembered that his grandmother was a confirmed gambler for high\u003cbr\u003estakes and that all her fifteen children, including his own father, were\u003cbr\u003edistinguished for good looks, fine manners, and the fatal habit of being\u003cbr\u003ein debt.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAll this passed through his mind as he stood there. He, a soldier without\u003cbr\u003einfluence, for whom promotion had already been very slow, was posted on\u003cbr\u003eservice in a lonely outpost at a time when there seemed no possibility of\u003cbr\u003ewar, with its chances of quick promotion, and no prospect of promotion\u003cbr\u003eotherwise. He was in his thirty-third year, with no hope of marriage on\u003cbr\u003ehis pay. And he had already in his mind prejudged and condemned this new\u003cbr\u003ecountry which, as yet, he still could not see--he condemned it because of\u003cbr\u003ethe uninteresting nature of the military service there; and because of\u003cbr\u003ethe character of the population--the majority being convicts.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe admitted later that these prejudices were formed in complete ignorance\u003cbr\u003eof the real conditions, but his depression as he shivered in his great\u003cbr\u003ecoat was real enough.","brand":"WDS Publishing","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47070245454064,"sku":"2940013740358","price":2.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940013740358_p0.jpg?v=1763589618","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940013740358","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}