The Life of Alexander Stewart. Preface by Sir P. Malcolm
Stewart, Bt. (Allen and Unwin. 10s. 6d.) THIS remarkable chapter of autobiography was for the most part written just over a hundred years ago and has now been prepared for publication by the author's grandson. Alexander Stewart was born in Fifeshire in 1790 and ran away to sea when he was fourteen. He regretted this act of bravado even before his first voyage had started, but had even more opportunity to regret it during the ten years he spent in various French gaols as a prisoner of war, having been captured by a French privateer just off Brighton in 1805. The last war has made us rather more familiar with the astonishing powers of endurance which ordinary men and women can show in apparently hopeless situations, but Stewart's story is more astonish- ing than most. No doubt French prisoners of war were as badly treated in our hulks as Stewart and his companions were in the fortresses of Sarrelibre and Bitche ; there was the same filth and squalor, the same hunger and idleness, and probably both nations were cruel more through indifference than deliberate policy. What distinguishes Stewart's from other records of the sufferings of prisoners is his constant effort to continue his education. He taught himself French and English grammar, so that when he did eventually get back to Scotland he was able to become a schoolmaster and, later, after conversion, a preacher of the Gospel. It is impossible not to develop great admiration for Stewart after reading these pages. 11-2 has modesty and candour, and the understatement with which he writes helps to make his descriptions unusually graphic. He confesses that there was only one occasion on which he really despaired and this was after his return to England. He found himself penniless in London, with no means of getting back to Scotland. So for a while he starved, then went back to the sea and had the bitter experience of seeing from the ship the home he had left twelve years before. He was unable to land, but this was not the worst. When he came back to port he was seized by the press gang. Then he does seem to have broken down. How many, one wonders, in any age, could have survived so long ?
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