To encourage the British, the Nabob of Arcot promised to divide among them fifty lacs of rupees on the day Pondicherry should surrender, and, as each lac was valued at 12,600l. sterling, the greatest enthusiasm prevailed among the officers, soldiers, and seamen: moreover, as all the French colonists who fled from other places had stored up their effects in Pondicherry, the treasure there was reputed to be enormous.
On the 26th September, Coote's forces had been mustered at 3500 English and Scottish Highlanders, with 7000 sepoys, all of whom were strongly intrenched, having taken Arcupong, Villa Nova, and every French outpost, while fifteen sail of the line and three frigates swept the ocean to the seaward, cutting of all succour; indeed, none was ever afforded to the unfortunate Lally save by the Dutch settlers, who sent two unpretending boats; but even these were observed, and on being seized were found to contain 20,000l. in cash and many valuable stores. Every day provisions were becoming more and more scarce, and notwithstanding the weakness of his garrison, Lally was compelled to select 200 French and 300 black soldiers, whom he contrived to despatch towards Gingi for succour; but they were all cut off, and thus he found himself worse than before.
The scarcity increased, and now gaunt starvation and death met the eye on every hand; a thousand scenes of horror and distress occurred daily within the walls of Pondicherry. The soldiers of Lally and the citizens were compelled to eat the flesh of elephants, camels, and troop-horses; after which dogs, cats, and even rats were devoured. The count was frequently implored to surrender, but having now become sullen, revengeful, and determined, his lofty pride made him resolve to perish among the ruins of the French Indian capital, but never capitulate.
Twenty-four rupees were given for a small dog, and in some instances as many half-crowns.
On the 5th November, Lally dispatched a 54-gun ship, La Compagnie des Indes, to Trincomalee, a Danish settlement, for provisions; but after eluding the watchful blockading fleet, she was taken at sea by H.M. ships Medway and Newcastle, and with her loss all hopes of succour died away.
On the 9th November, Colonel Coote erected a ricochet battery for four pieces of cannon, at 1400 yards from the glacis (for the information of unmilitary readers, we may mention that ricochet firing means when cannon or mortars are loaded with small charges, elevated from five to twelve degrees, so that when discharged from the parapet, the shot may roll along the opposite rampart); this was more with a view to harass the French than damage their works; but meanwhile four other batteries were erecting in different places to rake and batter them.
One for four guns, called the Prince of Wales Battery, was formed near the sea-beach, on the north, to enfilade the great street which intersects the White Town.
A second, for four guns and two mortars, was formed to enfilade the counter-guard, before the north-west bastion, at a thousand yards' distance, and in honour of the "Butcher of Culloden," was called the Duke of Cumberland's Battery.
A third, called Prince Edward's, for two guns, faced the southern works at 1200 yards' distance, to enfilade the streets from south to north, and cross the fire of the northern battery.
A fourth, on the south-west, at 1100 yards' distance, and called Prince William's Battery, was mounted with two guns and one mortar, to destroy the cannon on the redoubt of San Thomé.
Lally beheld all these preparations with calmness, and by inspiring his soldiers with something of his own fierce ardour, laboured to retard the work of the besiegers, whose batteries commenced a simultaneous fire at midnight on the 8th December. Lally's cannoniers replied with the utmost vigour; they slew a master gunner, a subahdar of sepoys, and wounded a great many more.
On the 1st of January, a violent tempest of wind, accompanied by torrents of rain, had almost ruined the works of Coote, and blown the fleet off the coast. The French became elated by the delay this occasioned, and the consequent prospect of relief; but the sudden reappearance of Admiral Stevens with his vessels caused their hopes to fade away; and once more this little band of starving and desperate men betook them to their muskets and lintstocks; for, still pressing on, Coote, on the 29th, formed a fifth battery, called the Hanover, at only 450 yards' distance, for ten cannon and three mortars, which opened a fire of shot and shell against the counter-guard and curtain.
At last, being driven frantic by their sufferings, the soldiers and citizens demanded that the place should be surrendered. Lally was immovable, but yet feeling keenly for what they endured, dissatisfied with the state of the French Indian affairs, and greatly exasperated by the disorderly conduct of his troops, and the baseness of their commissaries, he frequently burst into passionate exclamations which showed the keenness of his agitation.
"Hell has spewed me into this country of wickedness," he said on one occasion, "and like Jonas I wait until the whale shall receive me into its belly!"
"I will go among the Caffres, rather than remain longer in this Sodom," he exclaimed on another occasion.
But, nevertheless, he still defended the town like a good soldier, and on the disappearance of the British fleet during the storm, wrote the following letter to M. de Raymond, the Resident at Pullicot:—
"M. Raymond, the English squadron is no more! Out of twelve ships they had in our roads seven are lost, crews and all; four others are dismasted, and it appears that only one frigate has escaped, therefore lose not an instant to send us chelingoes upon chelingoes loaded with rice. The Dutch have nothing to fear now; besides—according to the law of nations—they are only to send us no provisions themselves, and we are no longer blocked up by sea.
"The saving of Pondicherry has once already been in your power. If you miss the present, it will be entirely your own fault. Don't forget some small chelingoes—offer great rewards. I expect 17,000 Mahrattas in four days; in short, risk all! attempt! force all! but send us some rice, should it be but a half garse at a time.
"Lally.
"Pondicherry, 2nd January, 1761."
The British fleet suffered considerably; many vessels which had to cut their cables, were totally dismasted, and the Queensberry, Newcastle, and Protector were driven on shore; while Le Duc d'Acquitaine of sixty-four guns (French prize), commanded by Sir William Hewitt, Bart., and the Sunderland of sixty guns, commanded by the Hon. James Colville, both foundered, and all on board perished. Captain Colville was the son of Lord Colville, of Culross, a Scottish peer, who died on the Carthagena expedition in 1740, and brother of Alexander Lord Colville, who in 1764 was Commodore in North America.
On the reappearance of Admiral Cornish with more of the fleet, the hope of the French sank again, and Lally, enraged at what he considered the mutinous repining of his soldiers, met their remonstrances with turbulence and contempt, and by an unwise, and perhaps over-strained exercise of authority, at this fatal and desperate crisis, most unfortunately contrived to render himself unpopular with the Governor, the Council, and the proud chevaliers of old France, who officered his little band of troops.
Still, however, the siege was pressed, and still the defence went on.
On the 5th January, Coote attacked the redoubt of San Thomé, sword in hand, at the head of a body of Scottish Highlanders and English grenadiers, and won it, thus silencing four 28-pounders; but two days afterwards, Lally retook it by 300 grenadiers, from the sepoys who were left in charge of it.
On the 13th Coote sent 700 Europeans, 400 Lascars, and a company of pioneers under a major, to erect another battery of eleven guns and three mortars. Under the clear splendour of an Oriental moon, these works were carried on within 500 yards of the walls; and this Batterie Royale was permitted to be erected without molestation, for in their sullen despair the garrison never fired a shot at it. On the 14th the Hanover Battery ruined the north-west bastion, and on the following day the Batterie Royale beat down the ravelin at the Madras gate; thus by the 15th of January a great and practicable breach was effected, and the cannon of the gallant Lally were silenced or dismounted.
In the evening a parley was beat, and four envoys came from the ruined walls towards the British trenches. These were Colonel Duré (Durie?) of the French Royal Artillery, Father Lavacer, Superior of the Jesuits, and two civilians. These were unprovided by "any authority from the Governor," says Vicomte de Vaux; but Colonel Coote, in his dispatch to Mr. Pitt, affirms that they came direct from Lally with proposals for delivering up the garrison. In the town, at that moment, there were only three days provisions of the wretched kind described; thus the extremity of famine would admit of no hesitation. Rendered ungovernable by what they had endured, Lally's officers declared the defence to be frantic obstinacy, and murmuring aloud, also averred that illness, pride, and the climate had disordered his imagination; and that it was criminal rather than valiant to defend an untenable fortress.
The following were the proposals of Lally, presented by Colonel Duré to Colonel Coote:—
"The troops of the king and Company, by want of provisions, will surrender themselves prisoners of war to his Britannic Majesty, on terms of the cartel, which I claim equally for all the inhabitants of Pondicherry, as well as for the exercise of the Roman religion, the religious houses, hospitals, chaplains, surgeons, serjeants, reserving and referring myself to the decision of our two Courts, in proportion to the violation of a treaty so solemn. (He refers to the treacherous capture of Chandernagore.)
"Accordingly M. Coote may take possession of the Villenour Gate at eight o'clock to-morrow morning; and after to-morrow, at the same hour, that of Fort St. Lewis.
"I demand, merely from a principle of justice and humanity, that the mother and sisters of Raza Sahib may be permitted to seek an asylum where they please, or that they remain prisoners among the English, and not be delivered into the hands of Mohammed Ali Khan, which are still red with the blood of the husband and father, which he has spilt, to the shame of those who gave them up to him; but not less to the shame of the commander of the English army, who should not have allowed such a piece of barbarity to be committed in his camp.
"As I am tied up by the cartel, in the declaration which I make to M. Coote, I consent that the Council of Pondicherry may make their own representations to him with regard to what may concern their own private interests as well as the interests of the inhabitants of the colony.
"Done at Fort Lewis, Pondicherry, 15th day of January, 1761.
"Lally."
To these the Colonel replied briefly by stating that the capture of Chandernagore was beyond his cognizance, and had no relation to Pondicherry; that he merely required the soldiers of its garrison to yield as prisoners of war, promising that they should be treated with every honour and humanity; that he would send the grenadiers of his own regiment to receive possession of the Villenour Gate, and that of Fort St. Lewis; and that according to the kind and humane request of M. Lally, the mother and sisters of Raza Sahib should be escorted to Madras, and on no account be permitted to fall into the hands of their enemy, the Nabob Mohammed Ali Khan.
To eight articles proposed by Father Lavacer, Superior of the Jesuits, requiring that the inhabitants should be treated in every respect like subjects of his Britannic Majesty; that they should have full liberty to exercise the Catholic religion; that the churches should be rejected; that all public papers should be sent to France; and that forty-one soldiers of the Volunteers of Bourbon should be permitted to return to their homes—Colonel Coote declined to make any reply.
At eight o'clock on the morning of the 16th July, Lally with a bitter heart ordered the standard of France to be hauled down on Fort St. Lewis, and at that hour Coote's grenadiers received the Villenour Gate from the Regiment de Lally, while those of the 79th Regiment took possession of the citadel.[2] Thus fell Pondicherry after a blockade and siege which Lally's skill and valour had protracted under a thousand difficulties for the long period of eight months, against forces treble in number to those he commanded.
Notwithstanding his fallen condition and the severe effects of a long illness, aggravated by the sultry climate, by bodily sufferings and anxiety, Lally marched out of the citadel with the air of a conqueror. "He is now as proud and haughty as ever," says an officer (who beheld him) in a letter to a periodical of the time; "but his great share of wit, sense, and martial ability are obscured by a savage ferocity, and an undisguised contempt for every person below the rank of general." This writer was ignorant of the high qualities of Lally, and the difficulties with which he had contended, or he would never have written thus.
According to the "exact state of the troops of his most Christian Majesty, under the command of Lieutenant-General Arthur Count de Lally, when he surrendered at discretion on the 16th of January, 1761," he marched out with the following—a miserable and famished band, hollow-eyed and gaunt—the few survivors of the Indian war:—
| Artillery of Louis XV., officers and men | 83 |
| The Regiment de Lorraine, ditto | 327 |
| The Regiment de Lally, ditto (of the Irish Brigade) | 230 |
| The Regiment of the Marine, ditto | 295 |
| Artillery of the French India Company | 94 |
| Cavalry of ditto | 15 |
| Volunteers of Bourbon | 40 |
| The Battalion d'India | 192 |
| Invalides | 124 |
In all there were only 1400. One of their first acts was to cut their commissary to pieces. Among the officers of the king's artillery was Jean Baptiste Louis Romée de l'Isle, the celebrated crystallographer, who was then secretary to a corps of engineers. The quantity of military stores delivered over by Lally to Coote is almost incredible.
There were 671 brass and iron cannon and mortars; 438 mortar-beds and carriages; 84,041 shot and shell, round, double-headed, and grape; 230,580 lbs. of powder; 538,137 rounds of cartridge for arquebuses, muskets, carbines, pistols, and gingals; 910 pairs of pistols; 12,580 other firearms; 4895 swords, bayonets and sabres; 1200 poleaxes, and every other warlike munition in proportion. Tidings of the fall of Pondicherry occasioned the utmost joy in Britain; and on Sunday, the 2nd August, there were prayers and thanksgiving in all the English churches.
On that day Lally arrived at Fort St. George a prisoner of parole. He had begged to be sent to Cudalore that he might have the attendance of French as well as British surgeons; but the Governor of Madras insisted upon his removal to that place, whither he conveyed him in his own palanquin.
A regiment of Highlanders garrisoned Pondicherry, and as Lally had destroyed many of the British fortifications, Colonel—afterwards Sir Eyre—Coote retaliated by blowing up the works and hurling the glacis into the ditch. The plunder acquired amounted to 2,000,000l. sterling. The quantity of lead discovered in the stores was immense. Lally found means to convey his own cash and Valuables (200,000 pagodas of eight shillings each) out of the garrison, but he was deprived of it by Coote's orders.
The plunder of the magnificent palace was a subject for regret to the officers who beheld it. It had been built by M. Dupleix, a former resident, at the cost of one million. On the same day that Lally surrendered, his Scottish compatriot, M. Law, on whose assistance he had for a time mainly relied, was defeated by Major Carnac.
M. Law was a nephew of the famous financial projector, John Law, of Lauriston, near Edinburgh, who, in 1720, was Premier of France, and Comptroller-General of Finance—the same whose desperate schemes brought the kingdom to the verge of bankruptcy. M. Law had made himself useful to the Schah Zaddah, son of the late Mogul, in supporting the young prince's hereditary claims, and enforcing his authority on the provinces of the empire. With 200 Frenchmen (principally fugitives from Lally's outposts) he persuaded the schah to turn his arms against Bengal; and accordingly the young and rash prince entered that rich and fertile province at the head of 80,000 Indians, whose operations were directed by Law, and certain chevaliers his friends. In the eye of the British (who had then become the arbiters of Oriental thrones), the presence of the Scottish refugee and his followers was more prejudicial to the title of Zaddah than any other objection, and they joined the Subah of Bengal to oppose his progress. A battle ensued at Guya, when Major Carnac, with 500 British, 2500 sepoys, and 20,000 blacks, cut the vast force of the young prince to pieces, and took prisoner M. Law, with sixty French officers.
Soon after the fall of Pondicherry, the French settlement of Mahé, on the coast of Malabar, was reduced by Major Hector Munro, of the 89th Highlanders, who captured there 200 pieces of cannon, and thus the whole commerce of the mighty peninsula of India, from the point of the Carnatic to the banks of the Ganges, fell under the dominion of Britain, together with the extensive trade of the vast and wealthy provinces of Bengal, Behar, and Orixa.
On the 3rd February, the nabob made his triumphal entry into Pondicherry, seated in a wooden castle on the back of a gigantic elephant, accompanied by twelve of his wives, escorted by British troops and by his own guards armed with lances, bows, and matchlocks.
Ultimately Lally received back his property, to the amount of 100,000l. in cash, and being brought to Britain a prisoner of war in H.M.S. Onslow, landed in September, 1761. He was confined for a time to a certain limit in Nottinghamshire; and on obtaining leave of George III. to depart, most unfortunately for himself, turned his steps towards France, the land of his father's adoption.
Having given his parole of honour to return whenever the British Government should require his presence, the count, on the 14th October, "after having discharged all his debts to tradesmen and servants" (as the London papers of the time state), sailed for France.
Notwithstanding the long and gallant defence he had maintained at Pondicherry, thus affording the highest proofs of firmness and fidelity, bravery and activity, he was arrested soon after his return, and committed to that prison of so many terrible memories—the Bastille—accused of many grievous things by the Government, which now instituted a severe inquiry into the conduct of the civil and military officials who had commanded in Canada, the Carnatic, and other possessions taken by Britain.
Among the charges brought against Lally were, betraying the interests of King Louis and of the French East India Company; abusing the high authority with which he had been invested; unwarrantable exactions from the subjects of his most Christian Majesty, and from foreigners resident in Pondicherry; for permitting that place to fall into the hands of the British; and generally for mismanaging the public affairs committed to his care.
In vain did this brave and unfortunate officer urge his many services, his many wounds, his grey hairs, his health broken by toil, by anxiety, and by a torrid clime, in the cause of France. In vain did he urge the numerous remonstrances he had sent to Paris, and Count d'Aché's detention of M. de Lequille's military chest; that at Madras he had resigned a desperate command, which the Chevalier des Soupirs declined to accept; in vain was the protest signed in the hall of Fort St. Lewis adduced to show how his efforts had been baffled, and rendered more than futile, by the insubordination of Count d'Aché; in vain did he explain how the Marquis de Bussy had loitered in Arcot; that he had long and frequently been without pay and without provision for his troops; how the Rajah of Mysore had failed in his promises; how his soldiers had deserted, and how famine in the streets of Pondicherry was a source of deadlier fear than the British cannon-shot; how his detachment sent to Gingi had been cut off to a man; how Chandernagore had been taken by treachery, contrary to the faith of treaties and that neutrality which had subsisted between the French and British in India, and immediately after the former had rendered the latter a signal service in not taking part with the Nabob of Bengal. The weak Government of Louis XV. required a victim to satisfy the people; thus his defence was useless. Brigadier-General the Marquis de Bussy and Admiral Count d'Aché, whose honour and safety were chiefly interested in his condemnation, were the principal witnesses examined against him. He was detained for four years in a close prison, and, according to the cruel and barbarous laws then existing in France, "the bequest of ages of violence and anarchy," was repeatedly tortured. Though his infamous judges were convinced of his perfect innocence, yet it was stated that, in consequence of the severe conclusions of the Procureur-General against the Count de Lally, on the night of Sunday, the 4th May, 1763, he was removed from the Bastille to the prison of the Conciergerie, which adjoined the Court of Parliament.
"Though it was but one o'clock in the morning when he arrived at the Conciergerie (to quote the report of his condemnation), he refused to go to bed; and about seven he appeared before his judges. They ordered him to be divested of his red riband and cross, to which he submitted with the most perfect indifference; and he was then placed on the stool to undergo a new course of interrogation."
At that crisis a pang of bitterness shot through his heart; clasping his hands, and raising his eyes—
"My God!" he exclaimed; "oh, my God! is this the reward of forty years faithful service as a soldier?"
The interrogatory lasted six hours, and D'Aché and De Bussy were successively examined against him. By nine in the evening the examination was over, and the count was re-conducted to the Bastille, surrounded by guards and several companies of the watch of Paris.
At six o'clock next morning the judges delivered their opinions, which were so various, that the clock of the Conciergerie struck four in the afternoon before they came to a conclusion and pronounced their arrêt or decree, which contained a brief recital of the charges against De Lally, without specifying the facts on which they were respectively founded; but for the reparation of which it was declared that he should be stripped of all his civil titles, his military rank, and dignities; that all his property should be confiscated to the king; and that his head should be struck from his body on the public scaffold.
Without emotion the count had heard their sentence, and with the utmost resolution prepared to die; yet he was detained, hovering as it were between life and death, until the morning of the 9th May, 1766, when he was drawn on a hurdle to the Place de Grève, and hastily, almost privately, beheaded, with his mouth filled by a wooden gag, to prevent him addressing the people—thus adding another to the many barbarous judicial murders which disgrace the annals of France.
His son, Trophine Gerard, who had been kept at the College of Harcourt in entire ignorance of his birth and of the proceedings against his father, only learned all these secrets when the public interest and commiseration became too great to conceal them longer. On the 9th the poor boy learned that the great General Lally, who was to die, was his father. He rushed, as he tells us, to the place of execution to bid this father, so recently found, "an eternal adieu—to let him hear the voice of a son amid the voices of his executioners, and embrace him on the scaffold when he was about to perish;" but he arrived only in time to see the axe descending and his father's blood pouring from a dismembered trunk upon a sanded scaffold. Overcome with horror, Trophine—afterwards the great Count Lally Tollendal—swooned in the street, and was borne away insensible to the College of Harcourt.
Thus in his sixty-fourth year terminated the eventful career of Count Lally, the victim surrendered by a weak and tyrannical ministry to popular clamour, affording by his fate a memorable instance of the injustice, ingratitude, and barbarity of the Court of Versailles.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The MS. original of these interesting instructions was presented to Charles Grant, Viscount de Vaux, by the directors of the English East India Company.
[2] The 79th, or Draper's Regiment, lost in this siege, and encounters before it, thirty-four officers, whose names were inscribed on a beautiful cenotaph, erected on Clifton Downs by Colonel Sir W. Draper and which he dedicated as,
"Sacred to the Memory of those departed Warriors,
Of the Seventy-ninth Regiment,
By whose Valour, Discipline, and Perseverance
The French land Forces in Asia were first withstood and repulsed."
John Cameron, of Fassifern,
K.T.S.,
COLONEL OF THE GORDON HIGHLANDERS; SLAIN AT QUATRE-BRAS, 1815.
From among the many distinguished Scottish officers who served under Wellington, if we could select one for the delineation of his career, it would be John Cameron of the House of Fassifern and Locheil.
This brave soldier was the eldest of the seven children of Ewen Cameron, Laird of Fassifern (i.e. the Point of Alders), and his wife, Lucy Campbell, of Barcaldine, whose father succeeded to the estate of Glenure on the death of her uncle, Colin Campbell, who was shot at the Ferry of Ballachulish, in Appin, by Allan Breac Stewart, otherwise known as Vic Ian, Vic Alaster—a crime for which the Laird of Ardsheil was judicially murdered by the Duke of Argyle at the Castle of Inverary.
Ewen Cameron was the son of John the Tanister, a younger brother of the great Locheil, who commenced the insurrection of 1745; and it is said that this powerful chief, on being summoned by Prince Charles to attend his memorable lauding in Moidart on the 25th July, was predisposed to warn him against the projected rising of the clans.
"If such be your intention, Donald," said John of Fassifern, "write your opinion to the Prince, but do not trust yourself within the fascination of his presence. I know you better than you know yourself, and foresee that you will be unable to refuse compliance."
But Locheil preferred an interview with the Prince, and the event proved the truth of Fassifern's prophecy. He joined him immediately with all the clan Cameron, and the gallant revolt of the clans immediately followed. Fassifern was taken prisoner after Culloden, and was long detained in the Castle of Edinburgh; there he was kept so close that the year 1752 arrived, yet he heard nothing of the barbarous execution of his brother, the amiable and unfortunate Dr. Archibald Cameron, until one evening a soldier brought him a kettle with hot water. He took off a paper which was twisted round the handle, and found it to be the "last speech and dying confession, &c., of the traitor Archibald Cameron." He immediately ordered a suit of the deepest mourning, and on appearing in it before the authorities was brutally upbraided by the Lord Justice Clerk for putting on mourning for a traitor.
"Alas!" said Cameron, "that traitor was my dear brother!"
"A rebel!" retorted the judge, scornfully. He was exiled, but afterwards returned to die at Fassifern.
Colonel John Cameron, the grand-nephew of the Jacobite chief, was born in Argyleshire, at the farm of Inverscaddle (a house which belonged to his family before the acquisition of Fassifern), on the 16th of August, 1771, only twenty-five years after the battle of Culloden, and while those inhuman butcheries, for which the name of Cumberland is still abhorred in Scotland, were fresh in the memory of the people. According to the old custom, common to Scotland and Ireland, he was assigned to the care of a foster-mother named M'Millan, who dwelt in Glendescherie, on the shore of Locharkaig. Thus, born and bred among the Gael, while the clans were unchanged and uncorrupted, and when the glens were full of that gallant race, with all their old traditions and historic memories, their military pride, and peculiar prejudices, Cameron was reared as thorough a chieftain as if had lived in the days of James IV. Educated among his native mountains, sharing in the athletic sports of the people, and those in which his foster-brother, Ewan M'Millan, who was a fox-hunter in Croydart, and a year his elder, excelled, young Cameron grew up a handsome and hardy Highlander, and early became distinguished by that proud, fiery, and courageous temperament for which he was so well known among the troops of Lord Hill's division, and which sometimes caused him to set the rules of discipline, and the aristocratic coldness of Wellington, alike at defiance, if they interfered with his native ideas of rank and self-esteem.
In the "Romance of War," a work which has made his name familiar to the reading public, a faithful description of him will be found. He was above the middle height, had a pleasing, open countenance, curly brown hair, and bright blue eyes, which, when he was excited, filled with a dusky fire.
Arms were then the only occupation for a Highland gentleman; and thus in his twenty-second year, on the 8th of February, 1793, he obtained an ensigncy in the 26th, or Cameronian Regiment, commanded by Sir William Erskine. He never joined that corps; but on raising a sufficient number of men in Locheil, procured a lieutenantcy in an independent Highland company then being formed by Capt. A. Campbell, of Ardchattan. He was gazetted on the 3rd of April; but this company was either disbanded or incorporated with the old 93rd Regiment, to which he was appointed lieutenant on the 30th of October in the same year. He did not join this regiment either, but busied himself in raising a company to procure the rank of captain in a corps of Highlanders, which, in obedience to a letter of service, dated 10th February, 1794, the Duke of Gordon was raising for his son, the young Marquis of Huntly, then a captain in the Scottish Regiment of Guards. This battalion was to consist of 46 officers, 64 staff, and 1000 rank and file, to be raised among the clan of Gordon.
From the lands of Fassifern and Locheil Cameron drew a company, principally of his own name and kindred, all hardy and handsome young Highlanders, among whom were his foster-brother, Ewen M'Millan, who never left him; three Camerons, Ewen, Alaster, and Angus, whom he made sergeants; Ewen Kennedy, for whom he procured an ensigncy, and another, who died a lieutenant. With these, all clad in their native tartans, he marched from the Braes of Lochaber to Castle Gordon, in Strathspey, where he was introduced to Alexander, Duke of Gordon, the Cock o' the North, by his uncle, the Rev. Dr. Ross, of Kilmanivaig, the worthy author of the statistical account of that parish. He at once received a company in the duke's own regiment, to which he was appointed on the 13th of February, 1794, and with which he attended the grand muster of the whole at Aberdeen on the 24th of June, when the corps was named the Gordon Highlanders, or 100th Regiment, afterwards and now the 92nd. The uniform coats and vests were scarlet, faced with yellow, and laced with silver to suit the epaulettes. The kilts and plaids were in one piece, each containing twelve yards of Gordon tartan; the claymores, dirks, buckles, and sporrans were mounted with silver; the bonnets were plumed with black ostrich feathers, and encircled by the old fess checque of the House of Stuart. The men were all Highlanders; scarcely one of them, and but very few of the officers, could speak English; the enthusiasm was so great in Badenoch that, in some instances, fathers and sons joined its ranks together.
At that time, when the French Revolution menaced Europe with anarchy, and the Convention declared war against Britain and Holland, the number of Highlanders in our service is almost incredible. During a period of fifty years the clans furnished eighty-six battalions of infantry, some of which were twelve hundred strong.[3]
How many could the Highlands raise now? Centralization, corruption, and local tyranny of the most infamous description have turned their beautiful glens into a silent wilderness, and the very place where Cameron raised his company of soldiers is now desolate and bare. "I can point," says the author of a letter to the Marquis of Breadalbane, on his late ruthless clearings, "to a place where thirty recruits that manned the 92nd in Egypt came from—men before whom Napoleon's Invincibles bit the dust—and now only two families reside there together. I was lately informed by a grazier that on his form a hundred swordsmen could be gathered at their country's call, and now there are only himself and two shepherds." The brave Gael, who crowded in tens of thousands to the British ranks, saw not the reward that was coming; evictions and wholesale clearings of the Scottish poor were then unknown. God gave the land to the people—they believed it was theirs but the feudal charters have decided otherwise, and the clans have been swept from Lochness to Locheil, and from Locheil to the shores of Lochlomond. The hills and the valleys are there, but the tribes have departed, and who can restore them?
Cameron of Fassifern embarked with his regiment at Fort George, in Ardersier, for Southampton, where, as kilted corps were unusual then in England, its arrival created a great sensation. From thence the battalion sailed for Gibraltar, under the command of Huntly, its colonel commandant, and disembarked at the Rock on the 27th of October. It was on this occasion that Mrs. Grant, of Laggan, composed her now popular song, "The Blue Bells of Scotland."
At Gibraltar a coolness ensued between Cameron and the marquis, and from that hour they never were friends. The former having had a dispute at the mess with a Captain M'Pherson on some point of Highland etiquette, high words and a duel followed. Captain, afterwards Colonel Mitchel, C.B., and Knight of St. Anne of Russia, was Cameron's second. Happily nothing serious resulted; and next day at the mess Lord Huntly drank wine with them all, begging that in future no more such quarrels might occur, and concluded by saying—
"I may be pardoned in requiring this, as, I believe, all the gentlemen here are the tenants of my father."
"No, marquis," said Fassifern, loftily; "by Heaven, here is one who is no tenant of the house of Gordon."
The young marquis frowned; he did not reply, but never forgot the haughty retort.
In sentiments and character, even in manner, Fassifern belonged to a past age—to a period of time beyond our own; for the stern pride, the Spartan spirit of clanship, with all the wild associations of the Gael, deeply imbued his mind, and gave a decision to his manner and a freshness to his enthusiasm. Proud and fiery, like all his race, he had the defect of being quick and hasty in his speech; but he never called aloud the name of an officer on parade, though more than one was reprehended by him in terms of severity, which, when the gust of passion was past, his generous spirit told him had been too great. He was a rigid disciplinarian, strict even to a fault, and yet withal he possessed a charm which won him the affection and respect of all his regiment. To English officers who did not understand him, to Wellington in particular, his pride seemed perhaps mere petulance, and his Highland chivalry (the result of his education) eccentricity: but of these more anon.
After receiving its colours on Windmill Hill, the regiment embarked for Corsica, and on the 11th of July, 1795, landed at Bastia, where, under the influence of Paoli, the allies had landed in the preceding year, and united the birthplace of Bonaparte to the British dominions. After suppressing a rebellion in Corte, a town in the centre of the isle, and forming the secret expedition under their major, Alexander Napier, of Blackstone, to reduce Porto Ferrajo in Elba, the Highlanders returned to Gibraltar, where General de Burgh publicly testified his approbation of their conduct.
Cameron who was now, by the death of Major Donald M'Donald, of Boisdale, senior captain, accompanied the regiment to Portsmouth, where it landed in May, and from whence it went to Dublin in June, 1798. Here he became attached to a young lady possessed of great personal attractions, and announced to his father his intention of marrying. But old Ewen Cameron had imbibed some curious prejudices against the Irish, for a false rumour had gained credence in the Highlands that Prince Charles had been betrayed at Culloden by his two Irish followers, Sullivan and Sheridan. There was great consternation in Fassifern and the Braes of Lochaber when it was announced that the young laird was about to wed a stranger; and however absurd this prejudice may appear, old Fassifern set all his wits to work, and contrived to have the engagement broken off completely. A quarrel ensued between the lovers; rumour speaks of another duel with some one; but from that time to the hour of his death, Cameron was never known to form another serious attachment.
At this time the Irish were in arms; Vinegar Hill was valiantly fought and lost by them; the Highlanders were kept incessantly on the march, and their belts were never off. During these operations, when encamped near Moat, they were re-numbered as the 92nd Regiment of the line.
After being quartered in Athlone, on the 15th June, 1799, Cameron embarked with the regiment for the camp at Barham Downs, where the troops destined for the expedition to Holland were assembling under Lieutenant-General Sir Ralph Abercrombie. The Gordon Highlanders were brigaded with the 1st Royal Scots, 25th, or Scots Borderers; the 49th and Cameron Highlanders, under Brigadier Sir John Moore. The troops sailed from Ramsgate, landed near the Helder, and on that evening the Gordon Highlanders, after having fifteen men drowned, fought bravely at the battle of the Sandhills. Here they and Cameron first saw the French, for whom he felt an hereditary abhorrence, having been reared to believe, like every Highlander, that they had trifled, forty years before, with the best interests of Scotland, and betrayed Prince Charles and the clans to England.
He served at the head of his company in all the operations under the gallant Moore—during the advance to Oude Sluys, the action at Crabhenden, where Captain Ramsay of Dalhousie was wounded; the engagement with General Brune; the attack on Alkmaar; the retreat to Zuype; and the battle of Egmont-op-Zee, where it is probable that his French antipathy received an additional incentive, by the infliction of a severe wound. In that decisive charge, by which twenty pieces of cannon were retaken from the enemy, a ball struck one of his knees; and as he was falling, the arm of the faithful M'Millan was the first to support him. Here the Marquis of Huntly was wounded in the shoulder; and neither he nor Cameron ever fully recovered the effect of these bullets. In this affair the Highlanders had 288 officers and men killed and wounded.
Among the latter was the henchman Ewen, who lost an ear. Rendered furious by the wound, regardless of Cameron's orders, he rushed among the French, and drove his bayonet, with a ball at the same moment, through the body of the soldier who had wounded him. Returning to his company, he said in Gaelic, to Cameron—
"You see what yonder son of the devil has done to me," and pointed to his ear, which was dripping with blood.
"He served you rightly," said Cameron, in the same language; "why did you skirmish so far in front?"
"Dioul!" muttered Ewen; "he won't take my other ear."
Here Sir John Moore was severely wounded, and Cameron desired two Highlanders to carry him to the rear. Moore afterwards offered 20l. to the soldiers who carried him off. The reward was proffered to the regiment on parade, and it is a noble trait of it, that no man ever stepped forward to claim the fee. On being created a K.B., and requiring supporters for his arms, Moore addressed the following interesting letter to Lieutenant-Colonel Napier, then commanding the regiment:—
"Richmond, 17th Nov. 1804.
"My dear Napier—I have been for some days on leave in London, and received your letters there. I am here with my mother for a day, and return this night to Sandgate. My reason for troubling you for a drawing is, that, as a Knight of the Bath, I am entitled to supporters. I have chosen a light-infantry soldier for one, being colonel of the 1st Light Infantry regiment; and a Highland soldier for the other, in gratitude to, and in commemoration of, two soldiers of the 92nd, who, in the action of the 2nd October, raised me from the ground, when I was lying on my face, wounded and stunned (they must have thought me dead), and helped me out of the field. As my senses were returning, I heard one of them say, 'Here is the general; let us take him away,' upon which they stooped and raised me by the arm. I never could discover who they were, and therefore concluded they must have been killed. I hope the 92nd will not have any objection (as I have commanded them, and as they rendered me such a service) to my taking one of the corps as a supporter. I do not care for the drawing being elegant; all I want is the correct uniform and appointments. Any person who can draw a figure tolerably, but will dress him correctly, with arms, accoutrements, and in parade order, will answer every purpose, as I want it for a model only, from which a painter may draw another. If you are at a loss for a person to do this, I dare say Lieutenant-Colonel Birch would do it, or get one of the officers of the department to do so, if you sent a man properly dressed to Colchester; but I think your own quarters will produce some one sufficiently expert. I received your letter by Captain (Peter) Grant, before I left Sandgate: he seems a very gentlemanly young man. I do not think I can recommend a proper adjutant to you at present. Remember me kindly to my friends of the 92nd, and believe me, my dear Napier, sincerely, &c.,
"John Moore.[4]
"Lieut.-Col. Napier, of Blackstone."
After the convention at Alkmaar, and the cessation of hostilities, the regiment embarked near the Helder, and landed at Yarmouth on the 29th October. Though still suffering from his wound, Cameron obtained the temporary command of a light infantry corps under Lord Hopeton. This provisional battalion was exercised on Barham Downs, where he won the reputation of a zealous and able officer. He came home on leave to his native glen, kindly bringing with him Ewen M'Millan, who had a craving to visit his old mother by the shore of Locharkaig.
They rejoined the Highlanders soon after, and the next scene of Cameron's service was in Egypt. Before embarking, his regiment was supplied with yellow knapsacks, having a red thistle painted on the backs of them.
Fassifern accompanied his regiment on General Maitland's futile expedition to the Isle de Houat, from whence, with other regiments destined for the Mediterranean, they embarked under Lord Dalhousie's orders; and after touching at Port-Mahon in Minorca, passed on to the attack of Cadiz, which was abandoned, in consequence of a pestilence that infected the coast. The expedition then sailed for Malta; and from thence to the Bay of Marmora, on the coast of Asiatic Turkey, where Abercrombie had concentrated 15,000 men to expel the French from Egypt. He had six regiments of dragoons, and forty battalions of infantry, seven of which were foreign.
Fassifern served with distinction in all the operations of the Egyptian campaign, including the landing effected under a desperate cannonade on the shore of Aboukir; the bloody contest round the Tower of Mandora, where his company occupied a conspicuous position in front of the line, as skirmishers, and where his colonel, Erskine of Cardross, received a mortal wound, and of his comrades there were 109 officers and men killed and wounded. The intrepid conduct of his regiment was particularly mentioned in the dispatches of Abercrombie, whose guard of honour was daily furnished from its ranks. Cameron was at the battle of Alexandria, where, on the 21st March, 1801, he received a wound under the left eye, and saw the brave Abercrombie receive his death shot.
The troops then advanced to Rosetta; and by the time when the Gordon Highlanders entered Grand Cairo—"the Queen of Cities"—the capital of Moaz El Kehira, their shoes were completely worn away. Quarter-master Wallace was ordered to procure an immediate supply; but there was one gigantic grenadier from Speyside, for whom a suitable pair of brogues could not be found in all Grand Cairo.
For his services in Egypt, Cameron received a gold medal from the Grand Seignior; and on the promotion of Major Napier to the lieutenant-colonelcy, he obtained the majority on the 5th April, 1801; and seven months afterwards, on the conclusion of that convention, by which Grand Cairo was surrendered, the Highlanders were ordered home to Scotland, and were quartered in Glasgow.
About this time a dispute occurred among the officers. Some of them, who were Lowlanders, insisted that the Gaelic, which was generally spoken at the mess, should be abolished there. It was put to the vote, and by an overwhelming majority, the Celts secured its retention; but in those days, there were in the regiment twelve gentlemen of the clan Donald, all kinsmen, who invariably voted together in everything, and could carry any point they pleased. These factions were known as the national and anti-national parties.
After the short peace of Amiens, war was declared again; and when the army was increased, the Gordon Highlanders were strengthened by the addition of a second battalion, and Major Cameron marched with it to Weely in England, to join the force mustered to oppose the expected invasion by Napoleon. The invasion ended in smoke; but the battalion remained cantoned in England until 1807, and in the preceding year lined the streets of London during the funeral of Nelson. Fassifern embarked with them at Harwich on the Danish expedition, under Lord Cathcart; and, for the first time, served under Wellington—then Sir Arthur Wellesley—at the attack on Kioge, where Lieutenant-Colonel Napier, at the head of the Highlanders, charged the Danes, who were routed with the loss of their artillery.
After the bombardment of Copenhagen, and the return of the troops to Britain, Major Cameron, in consideration, of his services, received a brevet lieutenant-colonelcy on the 25th April, 1808; a full lieutenant-colonelcy on the 23rd June following; and was shortly afterwards ordered on the Swedish expedition under Sir John Moore, who led 10,000 men to assist Gustavus Adolphus IV., a gallant but fiery and intractable prince, against whom Russia and France had united their arms. The violent temper of the Swedish monarch rendered this undertaking completely futile, and, without achieving anything, the expedition returned to Britain.
As junior lieutenant-colonel, Cameron now remained with the second battalion at home; while the first, under Lieutenant-Colonel Napier, accompanied Sir John Moore a third time on that fatal service, from which he never returned. In 1809, the gallant Napier fell with his leader at Corunna, and then Fassifern obtained the command of the first battalion, committing the second, in February, to the care of Lieutenant-Colonel Lamond, of Lamond. Thus, at the early age of thirty-seven, and after only fifteen years' service, he found himself at the head of one of the finest Scottish regiments in the service of his country.
In July, with the right wing of the first battalion, he embarked on board H.M.S. Superb, 74, at Harwich, on the great expedition under the Earl of Chatham, in Sir William Erskine's brigade. He was at the landing on Breesand in Walcheren, and the occupation of Ter Goes on South Beveland. He landed with 998 Highlanders; but so fatal was the Dutch pestilence, that in October only 250 of them were on parade; and the grenadier company, which was entirely recruited from Aberdeenshire, was reduced to two sergeants and three privates. Cameron deeply regretted the loss of his men. The first who died was a fine young clansman, whom he had brought with him from Lochaber, and he attended his funeral in the churchyard of a neighbouring village. After addressing the soldiers on the merits of the deceased, "Cover him up with the greenest sods," said he, "for he was a brave lad, a good soldier, and true Highlander!"