This story was originally written as a memoir by Frances Sophia Rainsford McLellan, probably in the late 1870s. Sophia was born in France in 1806. Her father was a prisoner of war there from 1803 until 1814. She moved to England in 1814 and then to St Helena where her father was Provost General at St Helena, the island upon which Napoleon was exiled. Returning to England in 1816, Sophia proceeded through a succession of boarding schools before moving to Scotland to marry her first love, William Hannay McLellan.The manuscript has been passed down through the generations of the McLellan family. Julie Garland McLellan is an author (although not a historian or biographer) and, having read the… manuscript, recognised its value and the need to ensure that it was shared.