The Tremendous Adventures of Major Gahagan by William Makepeace Thackeray

HEADQUARTERS, MORELLA: September 15, 1838

I have been here for some months, along with my young friend Cabrera: and in the hurry and bustle of war -- daily on guard and in the batteries for sixteen hours out of the twenty-four, with fourteen severe wounds and seven musket-balls in my body -- it may be imagined that I have had little time to think about the publication of my memoirs. Inter arma silent leges -- in the midst of fighting be hanged to writing! as the poet says; and I never would have bothered myself with a pen, had not common gratitude incited me to throw off a few pages.