CHAPTER XXIV.
“How sleep the brave, who sink to rest,
By all their country’s wishes blest!
When spring, with dewy fingers cold,
Returns to deck their hallow’d mould,
He there shall dress a sweeter sod,
Than Fancy’s feet have ever trod.
By fairy hands their knell is rung,
By forms unseen their dirge is sung;
There Honour comes, a pilgrim gray,
To bless the turf that wraps their clay,
And Freedom shall awhile repair
To dwell, a weeping hermit, there!”
1824–1862—COLONIAL EMPIRE—SOLDIER’S LETTER—CHINA.
However deeply interested we may personally feel in Lanarkshire, and however proud we may be of the many gallant soldiers who have gone forth from us to fight the battles of our one country, still to the Ninety-ninth the relationship indicated above exists scarcely but in name. Nay, even as a Scottish regiment its present composition would belie its seeming nativity. As in the case of many other regiments, so with it, these titles have been mostly attached for purposes of recruiting, and seldom bestowed to record the origin of the corps. Nevertheless, it is looked for as a consequence that the designation thus conferred should serve to stimulate the youth of Lanarkshire, bid them rally round the Ninety-ninth, and thus constituting it their own, immortalise its number by distinguished service in its ranks.
The regiment was raised in 1824, along with the present Ninety-fourth, Ninety-fifth, Ninety-sixth, Ninety-seventh, and Ninety-eighth regiments, at a time when our vast colonial empire demanded an augmentation of our army to ensure its adequate defence. Notwithstanding the anxiety of the Ninety-ninth to be released from the monotony of a passive service, and engage in the more stirring scenes of battle peculiar to the soldier, its brief history displays few events specially calling for notice, having been doomed to quietude, and denied by circumstances an opportunity of distinguishing itself during the Indian or Crimean wars. The following remarkable letter from one of its soldiers, extracted from Mr Carter’s interesting volume, the “Curiosities of War,” is truly a curiosity:—
“My Lord Duke,—I mean to take the liberty of writing these few lines before your Grace, flying under the protection of your wings, and trusting in your most charitable heart for to grant my request.
“May it please your Grace to reject me not, for the love of the Almighty God, to whom I pray to reward your soul in heaven.
“My Lord Duke, I shall convince you that I am a pte. soldier in the 99th depôt, at Chatham, a servant to Her Majesty since the 29th of September, 1846; likewise that I was born of poor parents, who were unable to provide any means of education for me but what I scraped by over-hours and industry, till I grew thus eighteen years of age, and was compelled to quit their sight and seek my own fortune.
“I think I am possessed of honesty, docility, faithfulness, high hopes, bold spirit, and obedience towards my superiors. I partly know the Irish language, to which I was brought up, and am deficient of the English language, that is, of not being able of peaking [qy. speaking] it correctly. One of my past days, as I was guiding a horse in a solitary place, unexpectedly I burst into a flow of poetry, which successfully came from my lips by no trouble. From thence I wrote during the following year a lot of poems, some of which, it was given up, being the best composed in the same locality for the last forty years past. However, I did no treason, but all for the amusement of the country.
“My Lord, I mean to shoe a little proof of it in the following lines:—
Once from at home, as I did roam my fortune for to try,
All alone along the road, my courage forcing high;
I said sweet home, both friends and foes, I bid you all good-bye.
From thence I started into Cork and joined the 99th.
This famous corps, which I adore, is brave and full of might,
With fire and sword, would fight the foe, and make their force retire.
Supplied are those with Irish Poet for to compose in rhyme,
I pray to God his grace upon the flaming 99th.
“My Lord, to get an end to this rude letter, my request, and all that I want, is twelve months’ leave, for the mere purpose of learning both day and night, where I could accommodate myself according to my pay, at the end of which twelve months I might be fit for promotion in the protection of Her Majesty.
“Your most obedient Servant,
“—— ——”
Public opinion is inclined to regard a war with China as something ridiculous; to smile at the odd equipment of its “Braves,” and laugh at the absurd pretensions of its “Celestials.” We fancy its hosts, like a summer cloud, as something to be at once dissipated by the first breath of the Western breeze. In this we have deceived ourselves, and on more than one occasion paid the penalty of our folly in the blood of the gallant few, who, overwhelmed by countless numbers, the victims of a matchless perfidy, have fallen as exposed to an almost certain destruction. Alone, as in a nest of hornets, we felt the sting of defeat when we had supposed an easy victory. Our discipline, our bravery, and our superior arms, failed to grasp the success we had imagined was to be had for the mere taking. The truth was revealed when too late; we had underrated the valour of the foe, and too much despised their means of defence; then we learned by a bitter experience that our handful of brave men, in the language of Pitt, “were capable of achieving everything but impossibilities.”
The Ninety-ninth was engaged in the recent Chinese war, but only in time to share the concluding glories of the campaign which crowned a severe and harassing contest in the capture of Pekin. The good conduct of the regiment on this occasion amply demonstrated the excellence of the corps—of what honourable service it was capable, and betokened an illustrious history, which may yet render it famous as the Lanarkshire regiment, and fill a larger space in the national records of “Our Brave.”
“Great acts best write themselves in their own stories;
They die too basely who outlive their glories.
OLD HIGHLAND BRIGADE AND LIFE GUARDSMAN.