The Narrative of a Commuted Pensioner. By J*** W*********, Late of the LXXVIII Regt. Now Serjeant in Liuet-Col. Maitland's Batt. of Montreal Volunteers

Montreal, Printed for the Author by J. Starke and Co., 1838. 12mo, 19cm, (tall copy), The First Edition, [ii],320p., in publisher's original linen backed paper over boards, faint blind stamp on the title page, expertly re-backed with the orig paper label, a very good to fine copy, rare. (cgc). Lande 2307. T.P.L. 2237. Dionne 343. Sabin 104461. Morgan p395. Watters p.418. Rhodenizer p451. Not in Matthews. Canadian Diaries & Autobiographies. The author was a Scotsman who served in the British army in India, Goa, Java, etc, When he returned home after seven years, he packed up his family and went to Canada, and in his last two letters discusses his taking up residence in Montreal and then joining Maitland Cs Battalion of Volunteers at the start of the "disturbances" in late 1837. The appendix consists of his descriptions of India, Madeira, Bombay, Tanna, Goa, Madras, Malacca, Java, Sourabaya, and St. Helena. "Obliged, while here, to work at his trade for his daily subsistence, he contrived to find leisure to send forth into the literary world the above mentioned work, which was extremely creditable to him, and would have been creditable to any one; for while interesting events and descriptions, in tolerable number, are dispersed through the work, light incidents are told in such a palatable way, and with such an easy grace, and often so archly, as to make the perusal of the volume a very agreeable relaxation". - Herald, Montreal". Morgan. John Williamson ( -1840), a British soldier, came to Canada and served as a sergeant in the battalion volunteers formed in Montreal because of the Rebellion of 1837-8. As "J.W." he published his autobiography, The Narrative of a Commuted Pensioner (2 vols., 1838), queried as a anonymous fiction in Bibliography of Canadian Fictions (1904) by L.E. Horning and L.J. Burpee. (Cf, Morgan, Bib. Can, (1867); Wallace (D.C.B).