r National Library of Scotland lllilli "B000051176* ^ Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2012 with funding from National Library of Scotland http://www.archive.org/details/reminiscencesOObris REMINISCENCES GENERAL SIR THOMAS MAKDOUGALL BRISBANE, BART. 50 Bei II ' i VI] I REMINISCENCES GENERA! SIR THOMAS MAKDOUGALL BRISBANE OF BRISBANE AND MAKERSTOITN, BART. G.C.B., G.U.H. ; D.C.L. OF OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE; F.R.S. L. AND E. ; F.R.A.S. \ H.M.R.I.A. ; PRESIDENT OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF EDINBURGH; MEMBER OF THE ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON ; CORRESPONDING MEMBER OF THE INSTITUTE OF PARIS, ETC. ETC. ETC. Irintrb for IJribatc Circulation. EDINBURGH: PRINTED BY THOMAS CONSTABLE. PRINTER TO THE QUEEN, AND TO THE UNIVERSITY. MDCCCLX. ^LIRRAHY^ *luO& —— CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. PAGH Antiquity of the House and Family of Brisbane—High Legal, Military, and Naval standing of many branches thereof—Death of Sir Thomas's Father in 1812—Birth of Sir Thomas in 1773- -His Infancy and Childhood— Early Education, .... 1 CHAPTER II. Receives his Commission as an Ensign in 1789—Stationed in Ireland—Becomes acquainted with his Grace the Duke of Wellington there, at that time of similar Military Rank Mutual enjoyment of Field Sport—Dundas's System of Tactics—War with France in 1793— Sir Thomas raises an Independent Company in Glasgow, and being elevated to the rank of Captain, joins with his Company the 53d at Edinburgh—Receive Orders for Holland to form a portion of the Army under the Command of his Royal Highness the Duke of York—First Engagement at Valenciennes—Wounded, but refuses to leave the Field till the Battle is gained—His Royal Highness the Duke of Cambridge a Prisoner of War—Retreat to Nieuport for the Winter of 1793-4, ... 7 CHAPTER III. Nieuport in 1794—Mouveau—Emperor of Austria—Landreci besieged and taken— Severe loss near Lille —Triumphant Repulse of the Enemy by the Little Brigade, of which the 53d and Sir Thomas formed a part—Antwerp—Bergen-op-Zoom, Breda, and Nimeguen —Severities of the Winter of 1 794, near the Rhine and the Waal—Ordered to Hanover —Thence to England in the Spring of 1795— Arrival at Norwich, . .11 CHAPTER IV. From Norwich to Southampton during 1795— Sir Ralph Abercromby—West India Islands —Army embarked in October—Disastrous Voyage—Danger of the Vessel in which Sir Thomas sailed —Occasion of his perfecting himself in the Science and Art of Navigation —Benefits of the acquisition— Barbadoes—St. Lucia— Sir John Moore— St. Vincent's Remarkable Power of a Cannon Ball—Other Providential Deliverances—Trinidad —Sir- Thomas Picton— Striking Incident— Return to St. Lucia—Thence Sir Thomas sails for England, ......... 13 — VI CONTENTS. CHAPTER V. Arrived in Portsmouth in 1799 —His Regiment, the 69th, had sailed three weeks before for Jamaica—Joins it—Letter from Sir George Nugent—He and his Regiment called Home in 1802—Arrived at Chatham, and placed under Sir John Moore—Passed the Winter at Colchester—In 1803, marched to Nottingham, afterwards to Silverhill Barracks in Sussex, afterwards to Rye—High Character of the 69th on leaving in 1804 Regiment then ordered to India, but the health of Sir Thomas forbade his going with them—Appointed Assistant Adjutant-General of the Staff at Canterbury in 1810 Appointed Brigadier-General in the Duke of Wellington's Peninsular Army in 1812 Arrived that year at Lisbon, thence to Coimbra and Freneda, where he renews his per- sonal intercourse and intimacy with the Great Duke— In June 1813, Sir Thomas and his Brigade threw the French into a panic at the Bridge of Cadora, so that their Cavalry fled, and the end was that the whole Army fled till they were pressed under the Walls of Vittoria, without even a single gun, . .19 CHAPTER VI. 1813 —Marshal Soult—Siege of St. Sebastian— Its Fall—Next General Action on the Nive in December—A tremendous fight at Orthes on 27th February 1814—Triumphant, though Sir Thomas had Seven hundred killed and wounded—Received the Thanks of Parliament same year for that action—Vigori—Tarbes—Toulouse—A Medical Musket- ball—Napoleon's Abdication—End of the War, ..... 24 CHAPTER VII. Appointed to command a Brigade in the American War—Arrived in the end of July same year—Atrocities chiefly arising from the employment of the Indians—Sir Thomas suc- ceeded in putting them down—Napoleon's Escape from Elba, March 1, 1815—Embarked for England, to rejoin the Great Duke—Off the coast of France, heard of Waterloo and the fate of Napoleon—Arrived in Paris—Reminiscences of the Duke of Wellington, . 28 CHAPTER VIII. His Marriage —Birth, Life, and Death of his two Daughters and two Sons, . .37 CHAPTER IX. Sir Thomas, from 1821 to 1825, is Governor-General of New South Wales—His Rule, refor- matory, peacefid, and economical—Extracts— Letter— Addresses on leaving, .• . 43 CHAPTER X. Honours conferred on Sir Thomas Makdougall Brisbane, . .61 — CONTENTS. Vll CHAPTER XL Observatories at Brisbane, Paramatta, Makerstoun—Contributions to Scientific Discovery Address by Mr. Herschel— Letters from Sir R. I. Murchison, Admiral Smyth, Principal .<!"> •J. D. Forbes, and his Royal Highness the late Duke of Kent, . CHAPTER XII. Public Fountains —Largs, its sanitary condition improved by Sir Thomas— Brisbane School, afterwards enlarged, now the Brisbane Academy—Noblemen and Gentlemen of the County of Ayr give Sir Thomas a complimentary Dinner at Largs in 1842, . 86 CHAPTER XIII. The 34th reviewed by Sir Thomas as their Colonel at Dublin, and honoured by a compli- mentary Dinner from the Officers of the 34th, and the Nobiblty and Gentry there in 1844 —Arrive in Scotland in 1856, stationed first at Glasgow, then at Edinburgh—Receive orders for India in 1857—Final and affecting parting between Sir Thomas and his Regiment at Edinburgh—Monument to the fallen Brave— The Great Duke's Funeral in 1862. ........... 1)4 CHAPTER XIV. Movement by Sir Thomas's friends, military and naval, scientific and civil, to obtain for him the dignity of Field-Marshal — Extracts from Letters and Periodicals— Conclusion, 105 Aitkndix, . J l :; LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. TAf.K Frontispiece, Portrait of Sir Thomas Makdouoall Brisbane in the uniform of a General of the British Army. Bbisbane House, Ayrshire, ... o » Makerstoun House, Roxburgh, ...... 37 Portrait of Sir Thomas Makdougall Brisbane, from the Painting foe which he sat to Sir John Watson Gordon, at the request of the Royal Society as their President, in 1848, ..... 65 V ; POSTHUMOUS NOTE. He whose " Reminiscences" this volume contains is no more. Hence- forth the book assumes the character of a Memoir. General Sir Thomas Makdougall Brisbane breathed forth his spirit into the hand of his Father and his God on the morning of Friday, the 27th January 1860. From the same old mansion-house of Brisbane, even from the same bed in which he was born nearly eighty-seven years ago, he was taken to his heavenly home. During seven or eight preceding weeks he had been unable to take his wonted drive with his beloved lady, and for the few last weeks he was unable to leave his bed. Yet calmly and contentedly, in perfect peace, his heavenly Father enabled him to recline, free from all sickness and pain. Even his wonted attacks of rheumatic gout were all withdrawn. He enjoyed more than ever the Word of God, and the privilege of prayer. With all his faculties entire to the last, he spoke to the effect, that his life had been crowned with loving-kindness and tender mercy. His most affectionate partner was strengthened amid her feeble- ness and the frailty of her frame to tend him to the last, and to close his eyes in death. Thus the aged Christian soldier waited, and watched, and prayed. On the Tuesday before his death, his most dutiful servant, who attended him more as a son than a servant to the last, observed a change in his aspect, indicating sudden and increased weakness. He instantly sent for his medical attendant, Dr. Campbell of Largs, who was soon at his bedside. The doctor at once saw that his strength was quite exhausted. All hope of his rallying in Spring was now taken away. He gradually grew weaker, until, as stated, on Friday morning, at sixteen minutes past three o'clock, without a struggle or even a sigh, like an infant sweetly falling asleep, he passed away. He is gone to the land of purity and peace to the mountain of myrrh and the hill of frankincense, where the day has broken and the shadows have fled for ever away. By the grace of his 2 POSTHUMOUS NOTE. covenant God, he has left behind him a world-wide fame, in what he was enabled to do in his country's battles, in the extension and consolidation of her magnificent colonial domains, and in the promotion of scientific dis- covery so far as to make his name and attainments familiar as household words to philosophers of all lands ; and now, we believe he is where earthly grandeur and courtly honours are of no glory, because of the glory that excelleth. He has left behind, as a legacy to his country and the Church of God, the heritage of a good name and a fair fame. Into the secrecies and the sacredness of the solitary grief of his widowed lady, left alone, it would ill become any one to intrude ; only it may be said, that the Lord hath heard their united prayers. She tended him night and day to the last, —the companion that never left his side, in storm or sunshine, by land or by sea, at home or abroad.