He was educated at the Charterhouse. In 1808 he became a captain in the West Kent militia, then at Woodbridge, Suffolk, but in the following year joined the British Army at Lisbon as a clerk in the commissariat. He served during the remainder of the Peninsular War, following the army to the fields of Vitoria, Nivelle, and Toulouse, and to the actions in the Pyrenees. He was promoted to be deputy-assistant commissary-general in 1811, and assistant commissary-general on 25 December 1814. From May 1813 he was in charge of the commissariat of the 3rd division of the Spanish army under Sir Thomas Picton, concerning whom he has recorded many interesting particulars in the "Memoirs of an Assistant Commissary-General".