Educated from a young age for the military profession of arms, John Blakiston was sent to the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich, becoming an Engineer assigned to East India Company army. Thereafter he transferred into the British army in Europe and then into the Portuguese service fighting in the Peninsula. He wrote his military memoirs in two volumes; each focussing on a period of his service in the military. The second volume concentrates on the Peninsular War under the Duke of Wellington, after a raid into Dutch [at the time French] Java, and is considered, even amongst the memoirs of the period, to be a somewhat rare account from an engineer officer - and one that fought in the service of Portugal. Battles such as Vittoria, the Nive and the Nivelle are recounted with an admirable eye for detail.