Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands

Opening of the book

WONDERFUL
ADVENTURES OF MRS. SEACOLE
IN MANY LANDS
EDITED BY W. J. S.
WITH AN INTRODUCTORY PREFACE
BY
W. H. RUSSELL, ESQ.,
THE “TIMES” CORRESPONDENT IN THE CRIMEA.
LONDON:
JAMES BLACKWOOD, PATERNOSTER ROW.

1857.
MRS. SEACOLE’S HOTEL I
LONDON:
THOMAS HARRILD, PRINTER, 11, SALISBURY SQUARE,
FLEET STREET.
DEDICATED, BY PERMISSION,
TO
MAJOR-GENERAL LORD ROKEBY, K.C.B.,
BY HIS LORDSHIP’S
HUMBLE AND MOST GRATEFUL SERVANT,
MARY SEACOLE.
TO THE READER.
I should have thought that no preface would have been
required to introduce Mrs. Seacole to the British public,
or to recommend a book which must, from the circumstances
in which the subject of it was placed, be unique in
literature.
If singleness of heart, true charity, and Christian works;
if trials and sufferings, dangers and perils, encountered

boldly by a helpless woman on her errand of mercy in the
camp and in the battle-field, can excite sympathy or move
curiosity, Mary Seacole will have many friends and many
readers.
She is no Anna Comnena, who presents us with a verbose
history, but a plain truth-speaking woman, who has lived
an adventurous life amid scenes which have never yet found
a historian among the actors on the stage where they
passed.
I have witnessed her devotion and her courage; I have
already borne testimony to her services to all who needed
them. She is the first who has redeemed the name of
“sutler” from the suspicion of worthlessness, mercenary
baseness, and plunder; and I trust that England will not
forget one who nursed her sick, who sought out her wounded
to aid and succour them, and who performed the last
offices for some of her illustrious dead.
W. H. RUSSELL.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
My Birth and Parentage—
Early Tastes and Travels—
Marriage, and Widowhood
1
CHAPTER II.

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