The 'Scots Brigade,' and other tales

by James Grant

DICK STAPLES OF THE 'QUEEN'S OWN.'

When I came back, boys, after my fighting in India was over, you laughed at my old red coat (for I had no other)—a trifle tattered, I dare say it was, as well it might be, after all I had gone through in it latterly; but you never forgot, boys, that it was the old Red Rag, that tells of England's glory!

The company to which I belonged—the Grenadiers of the 'Queen's Own' (for Grenadiers were not abolished till soon after the time of the Indian Mutiny)—was cantoned at Jubbulpore, in the month of July, when all Bengal was seething with revolt, and murder and outrage were occurring everywhere. All was quiet as yet in Jubbulpore, which I may tell you is in Berar, on the tableland of the Deccan; but ugly rumours came from time to time about the 50th and 52nd Bengal Sepoy regiments, who were stationed at Nagode, the nearest post to us, and which, of all the Bengal army, were eventually the last to revolt.

Neither tongue nor pen can describe what we—the handful of Europeans among the millions of India—endured at that terrible time, when the souls of fathers and mothers, of husbands and wives, daily grew sick with anxiety, while the atrocities of Delhi and Cawnpore, and more than a hundred other places, made our soldiers go mad in their longing for revenge. But all that is history now.

In the same cantonments with us was a regiment of Punjaubees, who had as yet remained quiet; but more could not be said of them, and we of the Queen's Own watched them closely, for we were only one to ten of them, and as no order for disarming them had come, we pretended to trust them, and affected a frankness and faith in our bearing with them we were far from feeling.

Thus, cantonment life went on pretty much the same as usual—the parade after gunfire, the officers and ladies riding or driving on the course, or the former idling in the verandas of the bungalows, sipping iced drinks or brandy-pawnee, studying the last Bengal Hurkaru or the thermometer; and the pandies cooking their food—rice and chillies, chupatties and ghee, under the glaring sun, in their own lines, and careful that the baleful shadow of no European passer should, during the process, fall across it. Our chief fear was that the approach of some thousand natives and deserters, led by Koer Sing, steeped in slaughter and flushed with conquest and crime, might in an hour change the face of things, and find us fighting for bare existence with the very men who shared the garrison duty of the cantonment with us.

Captain Basil Heron, who commanded us—a handsome man, in the prime of life, a great favourite with us all, and the leader in all manly sports and schemes for our welfare—with Captain Dalton, who commanded the Punjaubees, began to take quietly some measures to render the Residency, the only brick edifice there, more defensible than it was, a place wherein to place the European women and children in case of emergency.

Captain Heron had a wife—a fair and delicate English girl—and one little child, on whom they both doted; and when I saw the expression of haggard anxiety their faces wore, and the faces of others who had such charges to love and protect, I thanked Heaven that then and there I had neither wife nor child to care for, nor aught to look after but my old 'Brown Bess.'

Rumours that precautions were being taken spread like lightning through the native lines, and Buktawur Sing, the Subadar-Major of the Punjaubees, a grotesquely ferocious-looking fellow, with a large hook nose, and black mustachios of such enormous length that they floated over his shoulders, went to Captain Heron, and, with his base eyes full of tears, besought him not to send the ladies and children out of the cantonments, as the whole of his regiment had sworn on the waters of the Ganges 'to be true to their salt.' Captain Heron heard this promise doubtfully; but Mrs. Heron, who sat there with her baby crowing in her lap, its fat fingers clutching at the golden curls that clustered round her forehead, besought her husband to believe him.

But although he salaamed and bowed very low indeed, my particular chum and comrade, Bill Brierly, who had been more than twelve years in India, expressed to me his firm belief that this was all acting, and that 'the time was at hand when we might look out for squalls!'

And I was sure Bill was right, for I had been on duty as an orderly in the veranda on the evening when Buktawur Sing quitted the captain's bungalow, and there was no vestige of his crocodile's tears as he passed me; but a broad grin spread over his brown face, and a cruel leer came into his eyes as he paused for a few seconds, and listened to the voice of Mrs. Heron, who was singing at the piano.

Despite the promises of Buktawur Sing, Captain Heron, as senior officer, posted a picquet at some distance from the cantonments on the road to Nagode, to cut off communication with the two regiments there—at least, to prevent any concerted movement being arranged; and all postal matters being then at a standstill, we knew little about what was going on around us, but heard only vague and terrifying rumours.

On a night early in July, I was detailed for the picquet on the Nagode road, and Captain Heron resolved to accompany it, though it was under Mr. Drayton of Ours, a middle-sized and handsome fellow, with a delicate-looking face, and much of that self-esteem and imperturbable confidence of character peculiar to many young Englishmen. He had seen service, too, and had on his breast the Crimean medals.

As we paraded in front of Captain Heron's bungalow, he came forth with his sword and revolver, and his pretty young wife clinging to his arm.

'Are you compelled to go, Basil?' she asked.

'No; yet somehow I feel impelled to-night; but retire, Rose. Good-night, dear—you look tired; to bed, and pleasant dreams to you.'

'You have your flask and the sandwiches, and your great-coat?'

'Everything. How thoughtful you are! Good-night, and kiss baby for me.'

We marched out through the lines; but Mrs. Heron, who had some sad foreboding, watched the picquet as long as it was in sight. Heron and Drayton chose their halting-place and threw out their advanced sentinels a considerable distance in front of the picquet. Of these, I was one, and my orders were, on the advance of any armed party, to fall back softly and silently, and communicate the alarm. Alone on my post there, keeping watch with the stars, and the whole sweep of country before me, memory went back to the old, or rather the young, days of my boyhood, even to yonder old mill, when I worked there; the rabbits in the brake, the squirrels in the trees, the nuts and berries in the hedgerows; till suddenly the galloping of a horse roused me, and I cocked my musket. The sound came from the front!

Another moment and the rider was before me, and reined up. He evidently had heard nothing of the picquet, and was enraged to find me barring the way. By his uniform he was a subadar of the 50th B.N. Infantry, and mounted on an officer's horse.

'The parole?' said I.

'How should I know it? I have just come from Nagode,' said he, in broken English; adding, 'Stand back, Kafir!'

'Oh ho!' I exclaimed, as the epithet warned me at once of enmity; and grasping his reins, 'What news have you from that quarter?' I asked.

'Only that the faithful have risen at last, and not one of the accursed Ghora Logue (i.e., white people) will be left alive—not even the youngling at its mother's breast, and all in Jubbulpore shall perish too!' he added through his clenched teeth, while his eyes blazed with fury, and he attempted to draw his sword; but ere he could do so, and as his horse rose on its haunches for an onward bound, I jerked the powerful curb with such violence to the rear, that ere the sword had left its scabbard, man and horse were prostrate on the road—the former stunned and senseless. In a moment more I was in his saddle and galloping back to report to Captain Heron all I had heard from the envoy of the mutineers.

The picquet had barely got under arms when a great hubbub was heard coming on from the front, but no appearance of armed men, though the moon had now shone forth. It was chiefly the rolling of wheels and clatter of hoofs, and ere long there came up a wild and terrified throng of European fugitives from Nagode—dishevelled women, exasperated men, and wailing children. In a word, on the approach of the rebels under Koer Sing, the 50th and 52nd had broken out into open mutiny; but, by some merciful interposition of Providence, had permitted their officers, with their families, to fly to Jubbulpore, where they hoped for a time, at least, to find protection and safety.

Captain Heron was in the act of promising both, when a cry escaped him, for a sound of scattered musket-shots was heard in our rear, and flames were shooting up from every quarter of the cantonments of Jubbulpore.

'The Punjaubees have revolted!' exclaimed everyone. The sentinels were called in, and the picquet fell back at 'the double'—every heart beating wildly. Upwards of thirty straw-roofed bungalows and innumerable haystacks were blazing at once, casting a lurid glare on the country for miles around; great pinnacles of wavering and many-coloured flames, with huge volumes of smoke, rose into the air of the sultry night, the roar of the conflagration mingling with the yells of the rioters and the shrieks of the perishing.

Under Buktawur Sing, whom some other messenger had reached, the Punjaubees had revolted, looted and destroyed the bungalows, and gone off to Nagode, killing every European who failed to reach the Residency, taking with them, 'as hostages,' Mrs. Heron, with her baby, and a Lieutenant Macgregor. Wild wrath swelled up in all our hearts, as we looked around us, and collected the dead—the gashed bodies of brave men, of helpless women and children; and I shall never forget the face of Captain Heron, as he clung to Mr. Drayton's arm, and looked at the flaming bungalow to which he had brought his bride last year.

'Henceforth,' said he, 'life will seem a blank behind me—worse than all, a blank before me, with a memory floating through it—the memory of her, and our poor little baby!' and he covered his face with his hands. 'My poor little wife! that I should have been so near, and yet utterly powerless to save her!'

'Hold up, bear up, for Heaven's sake, old fellow!' I heard Drayton say; 'surely even these wretches will not have the heart to hurt a hair of her head.'

But Basil Heron answered only with a groan, yet not a tear escaped him. His grief and horror seemed too deep for even tears; every man of the Queen's Own there, felt that he could face death or anything to rescue her and make him happy; but too probably only unavailing vengeance was left to us! However, we had no time for much reflection. We took up our quarters in the Residency, all that were left of us, resolved, if attacked, to sell our lives as dearly as possible.

We entrenched and fortified it to the best of our means. The verandas were bricked up, leaving only loopholes to fire through. Sandbags were placed all round the roof, which was flat; we staked the ground all about it to prevent a rushing attack, laid in grain for three months, and got two field-pieces planted in front of the house, to command the approach. We had in our care ten ladies, a number of sergeants and writers' wives, and ever so many children. In all we numbered now only about fifty fighting men, including officers, to furnish guards night and day, as we were in hourly expectation of an attack. Poor Captain Heron—the ghost of his former self—superintended all this, but day by day went past without tidings of his wife and child, and he would rather have known that they were lying, where so many others lay, in the burial-pit close by, in rest and peace, than endure the awful uncertainty that he did as to their fate.

After a time we heard that the rebels and mutineers of that quarter were all massed, and living riotously, under the ex-Subadar-Major Buktawur Sing, in a place called Kuttingee, ten miles from Jubbulpore. They numbered several thousands—too strong for us to attack, and not even to save his wife dared Captain Heron risk the lives of his soldiers. And now it was that my comrade, Bill Brierly, came so manfully to the front. He was a queer fellow, Bill, and early in life had been—so the Queen's said—a strolling player. He was always merry and laughing, sang a good song, and was up to all kinds of larks; so now he volunteered to go to Kuttingee disguised as a budmash—one of the idle and rascally sort of irregular soldiers who loaf about bazaars, and are up to all kinds of mischief—and as such try to obtain some tidings of Mrs. Heron.

'Fifty guineas—aye, all I have in the world—are yours for any news you bring me, Brierly; even if they be evil,' said the captain, in a broken voice.

'Sir, I don't do this for money,' replied Bill; 'but for love of yourself and the poor young lady, who was so kind to me when in hospital—down with jungle fever. I risk my life daily for a shilling; why should not I do so, once at least, for her?'

'God bless you, Brierly!' said the captain, wringing his hand. 'God bless you!'

How I envied Bill, and would gladly have gone with him, but he—used to acting, knowing the lingo and the ways of the country, and how to comport himself—could alone perform the perilous task he undertook, knowing well, too, the while, that if he fell into the enemy's hands by being discovered, he would suffer a death as elaborately cruel as these barbarians could devise. He attired himself in a blue silk koortah, over a muslin shirt; a yellow-coloured chintz was wrapped round his shoulders; he wore a green turban and white cummerbund, or sash, in which he placed a brace of double-barrelled pistols carefully loaded. His face and neck to the shoulders and his hands to the wrists were coloured with lamp-black, the cork he used being dipped in oil to cause the colour to adhere; and thus disguised, he left the Residency, singing as he went—

'Sing hey, sing ho for the army O!
Sing hey for the fame of the army O!
A shilling a day is very fine pay,
Then buckle and away for the army O!'

And we watched him, as, after the heat of mid-day was past, he took, alone, the road that led to Kuttingee.

Three days passed, and as there was no sign of poor Bill coming back, we began to fear the worst—that 'the niggers' had discovered and cruelly killed him.

After perils or risks that might be spun out into a volume, Bill got past the outposts and sentries of the rebels and found himself in Kuttingee—ostensibly a budmash—willing to serve, for money or mischief, Buktawur Sing, or anyone else. Riot and disorder seemed to prevail in every quarter, though for their own safety the rebel Sepoys maintained a kind of discipline, and had guards and sentries posted. On all hands were seen the plunder of villas and bungalows. In the bazaar, three European heads were hung in a bhoosa bag, or forage-net, and Bill looked at them with anxiety lest one might prove the head of her he had come to seek tidings of.

Three days were passed without progress being made; but on the third he succeeded beyond his expectation.

When loitering near the gate of the fort, which overlooked the town of Kuttingee, he jostled unexpectedly a Sepoy in the uniform of an officer, all save a huge green turban, who was about to enter the gate.

'Chullo Sahib!' (Come, sir!), the latter exclaimed angrily; 'what in the name of Jehannum are you about?'

Bill's heart leaped on finding himself face to face with Buktawur Sing, the commander of all the rascal multitude in the place!

'Who are you?' demanded the ex-Subadar-Major.

'Sookham Lall, a budmash, in want of a captain.'

'From whence?'

'Jubbulpore, last.'

'Jubbulpore! What are the cursed Kafirs doing there?'

Bill described in somewhat exaggerated terms the fortification and garrison of the Residency.

'We may bring guns against it,' said Buktawur.

'They too have got guns,' replied Bill, though he knew that the Residency could no more stand a bombardment than a house of cards.

'And now, what do you want here?' asked Buktawur, his black beady eyes gleaming suspiciously.

'To kill your Christian prisoners, just to keep my hand in,' replied Bill, grinding his teeth; 'you have twenty, I understand.'

'I have only two here—the Sahib Macgregor and the Mehm Sahib Heron (her brat is not worth counting); there they are in the garden.'

Bill laid a hand on his tulwar.

'Not so fast, my friend,' said Buktawur, with a grin, 'for she is to be my wife; and if matters go hard with me I may want the Sahib's head.'

'So they live yet!' thought Bill, as he entered the garden of the fort, but dared not approach them, though looking sharply at them, and viewing the strong defences of the place, and the avenues that led to it.

In a kind of alcove, excavated out of the solid rock of the fort, Mrs. Heron—clad now partly like a native woman—was seated with her baby in her lap, and near her Lieutenant Macgregor, as if for companionship or the sympathy he dared scarcely to manifest. He was in the rags of his uniform, and both looked haggard and wasted with the anxieties and troubles they had undergone.

Bill drew near her, but at that moment a Sepoy came to Buktawur for orders.

'Don't start, Mrs. Heron,' he whispered, 'or seem to see or hear me—I'm Billy Brierly, of your husband's company. He is well and unwounded, and counts every hour till he can rescue you.'

Bill then drew back, for now Buktawur Sing came hastily and suspiciously forward. Mrs. Heron looked up. Astonishment, gratitude and hope were expressed in her eyes by tears, but not a ray of joy shone in them; and honest Bill Brierly felt his heart wrung as he looked on the poor lady, and saw now that the baby she held in her lap was dead!

He mentioned this to Buktawur Sing.

'Kootch purwanni' ('Never mind'), replied the latter, laughing to see her bending over it in the depth of her misery, and playing with his little white hands and flaxen curls.

'My little Basil—my little Basil!' she kept repeating; 'my little sunbeam gone! But safe now—safe from peril and suffering—safe with the Good Shepherd. And I am here!'

As if to show his weariness or contempt of this, the ferocious Buktawur Sing snatched the child from her, and, with an imprecation, cast it into the alligator tank in the centre of the garden. She uttered a wild shriek and fell forward on her face senseless. Macgregor started to her assistance, but was driven back by the sharp bayonet of a Sepoy sentry; and Brierly, finding that he was powerless to give any aid whatever, quitted the place, and with a sob for vengeance in his throat, took the way back to Jubbulpore.

Bill mercifully remained silent as to the fate of the child; but poor young Captain Heron was never weary of questioning him as to it and the unhappy mother.

'It is a sore trial to me, Brierly,' said he, in a broken voice.

'Yes, sir,' he replied; 'but He who sends the trial sends the strength to bear it too.'

'Bear it like a man,' urged Drayton.

'But I must also feel it as a man,' replied poor Heron, unconsciously quoting the words of Macduff.

And now came tidings that filled us all with grim and stern joy. The movable column of the Madras troops, under General Miller, was on the march from Dumoh to attack the rebels in Kuttingee, and drawing out from the Residency every man fit for service, Captain Heron set off to join him; and I can remember how, on the march, he kept near the section where Brierly was, for the latter had seen and spoken with the creature he loved most on earth. A ghastly and haggard man Heron looked now—the shadow of his former self.

Though it was only a ten-miles tramp, and, leaving knapsacks behind, we had only our great-coats and blankets to carry, I shall never forget that day's march to Kuttingee! It was one of thirst and toil, with all our canteens and water-bottles empty. We pushed on under a noonday sun, under which the parched earth seemed to pant like a living creature. The streams were dried up, and all that was green had become yellow and sickly in hue; the sky seemed a furnace—the sun a globe of fire. Clouds of dust surrounded our line of march, and sand-spouts rose at times; the ravens and kites gaped with wide-open beaks by the wayside, and the alligators lay hidden to the muzzle in their oozy tanks. Fissures gaped in the soil; the birds were hushed, and insect-life stood still; the 'burra choop,' or Great Silence, as the Hindoos call it, reigned around us, and we had three cases of sunstroke; yet we pushed manfully on, and when evening drew near found ourselves in front of Kuttingee.

The first shot might be the death-knell of Mrs. Heron and all other Christian prisoners, so the emotions with which her husband surveyed it as he marched the remains of his company into the assigned position may be imagined.

The outworks of the fort were armed with cannon, which opened on our columns as soon as they were within range, and to which ours were not slow in replying, and making a considerable slaughter of the infantry that lined the summit of the walls and towers, which their return fire seemed to garland with flashes and smoke. We of the Queen's, as a flank company, had the Minie rifle (which by force of habit we still called Brown Bess), and in closing up we took cover under every bush or stone, and picked off the rebels by steady pot-shots delivered from the knee. We carried the outworks by a furious rush at the point of the bayonet, and then slewed round a couple of the heaviest guns, by which we blew in the gate of the keep, or central fort. Beyond was a traverse, over which the rebels were firing; a tempest of balls swept through the arch as the wind sweeps a tunnel, and there fell many of ours, and among them poor Bill Brierly.

Our loud hurrahs replied to the yells of 'Deendeen!' ('Faith!') and 'Death to the Kafirs, the Feringhees, the Ghora Logue!' while maddened by bhang, opium and churuis, the infuriated Sepoys met us hand to hand, but only to go down on every side; for, with our bugles sounding the 'advance,' we stormed the traverse at a rush, and spread all over the garden within the square fort.

We fought our way desperately. 'Remember the ladies—remember the babies!' were our cries. Near the alligator tank lay the bodies of a European man and woman. They were those of Lieutenant Macgregor and Mrs. Heron, before whom he had thrown himself twice, as she was cut down by the tulwar of Buktawur Sing, and the blood was yet flowing from her wound when we found her. As for the poor officer, he was found, as the General reported, 'with a hole through the neck, both arms broken, and his body perforated by upwards of thirty wounds.'

I was an old soldier even then. I had been in many battles, and seen much of death and suffering, but I felt a choking in my throat as I saw Basil Heron, kneeling, sword in hand, by the side of his wife for a moment, ere he rushed away, intent on revenge.

Hemmed in a corner, amid a heap of dead and dying, he ere long found Buktawur Sing, and, though I did not see it, close and terrible was the combat that ensued between them.

'At last! at last I have him! God, I thank Thee!' he exclaimed, with a fervour that mingled with just indignation; and he ordered Drayton to stand back, and the soldiers, who were ready to shoot the reptile down, to leave him to his own fate. Buktawur was armed with a ponderous tulwar, edged like a razor; and Heron, fortunately for himself, had not one of our regulation tailors' swords, but a straight good-cutting blade that his father had used in Central India. His teeth were set; he panted rather than breathed; his check was pale—his eyes were blazing, and sparks of fire flew from their swords at every stroke. But fate was against Buktawur Sing, he received in his body a succession of cuts and thrusts that brought him, with blood flowing from every vein, upon his knees, and when his turban fell off, by one trenchant slash Basil Heron clove him from the brain to the chin, and with his foot fiercely he spurned the corpse as it sunk before him.

* * * * * *

'Where is she?' he gasped hoarsely of me and others, as he staggered back to the side of the alligator tank, and found that his wife had disappeared.

'Inside the fort. Calm yourself. We have laid her on a charpoy, poor girl!' said Drayton.

'My poor Rose! my poor Rose!' moaned Heron, as he covered his face, and the hot tears streamed through his fingers. Through a place where 150 of the 52nd alone were lying dead, he was led into a darkened room, where, after the roar of the storm and capture, all seemed dreadfully still. On a charpoy, or native bed, lay Rose Heron, and Sheikh Abdul Ali, a native doctor, was bathing and binding up the wound; and, nerving himself for what he had to look upon, her husband drew near, and with trembling hands drew back the mosquito-curtains.

Was he dreaming? was it a mockery or a delusion that he saw Rose there—not dead—not even dying; but with her eyes seeking for him—blood already mantling in her pale cheek? And he learned that the blow of the felon's tulwar had—though cutting her tender forehead—only stunned her, for the hand of Macgregor had caused the blade to turn in his grasp!

Some bright beams often fall from the gloomiest sky. So husband and wife had met again, and—after all they had undergone—survived to spend the coming Christmas at home in old England, and to hear the merry chimes in their peaceful Kentish village ring out upon the frosty air the message of Peace and Goodwill to All.

THE STORY

OF

LIEUTENANT JAMES MOODY

OF

BARTON'S REGIMENT.

THE STORY
OF
LIEUTENANT JAMES MOODY
OF
BARTON'S REGIMENT.

The exploits of this adventurous but forgotten Scot, who nearly perished miserably on an American scaffold, like Major André of the Cameronians, surpassed in some respects even those of Captain Colquhoun Grant, the famous scouting officer of Wellington, so extolled by Napier in his 'History of the Peninsular War.'

During the progress of the strife with our revolted colonists in America, he rendered himself famous by the skill and audacity with which he intercepted many of their mails and brought them into New York, then the British headquarters after the Battle of Long Island. In May, 1780, when an ensign, with four trusty soldiers he penetrated into New Jersey, for the purpose of surprising Governor Livingstone, who cruelly oppressed the royalists, but failing to achieve his capture, his next idea was to blow up the magazine at Suckasanna, which also proved abortive, as he found it guarded by above one hundred bayonets. On being joined by a few soldiers who had been taken with Burgoyne at Saratoga, he entered the mountainous county of Sussex, in the principal gaol of which, he learned, several prisoners were confined for their loyalty, and among them a poor soldier of Burgoyne's, who had been doomed to death; merely for being a royalist. Moody determined on achieving the release of this man and all the other prisoners.

Selecting six men he came to the gaol door late at night, and his business was demanded by the keeper from an open window.

'I have here a prisoner to put into your custody,' he replied.

'Is he one of Moody's fellows?' asked the gaoler, at a venture.

'Yes, exactly so,' replied the ensign, giving the name of some noted Tory in the neighbourhood, and desiring the keeper to come for him.

The latter declined, saying that 'Moody was about, and he had orders to admit no man after sunset.'

'I am Ensign Moody,' said that officer sternly; 'I have a strong party with me, and if you do not surrender your keys, I will blow the place about your ears!'

His men now imitated the Indian war-whoop, and shouted, 'The Indians—the Indians have come!'

On this the gaoler, his assistants, and even many of the townspeople, fled to the woods. Moody then burst into the gaol through the window, and found the condemned soldier in his cell fast asleep.

'There is no possibility,' says Moody's Narrative (now out of print), 'of describing the agony of this man when he saw before him a man in arms, attended by persons he was utterly at a loss to recognise. The first and only idea that occurred to him was, that, as many of the friends of the government had been privately executed in prison, the person he saw was his executioner!'

Moody released and carried off with him all the prisoners, including the soldier, who, by a strange freak of fortune, was afterwards taken again during the war, and hanged in the same prison, and in virtue of the old sentence, though we are told that his only crime was 'an unshaken allegiance to his sovereign.' This seems barely probable, as another soldier, a Scotsman named Robert Maxwell, was executed at the same time for robbery and plunder.

On the 6th of March, 1781, when Moody was still an ensign, the Adjutant-General, Oliver de Lancy, of the 17th Light Dragoons, successor in office to the ill-fated André, proposed 'an expedition into the rebel country, for the purpose of intercepting the despatches of Mr. Washington.' Moody instantly undertook the task, and marching his party twenty-five miles that night, concealed them in a morass; but the guide lost heart, which so enraged Moody that he would have shot him, but for the sake of his wife and family, and was compelled to return to New York. Colonel de Lancy was much disappointed; the guide was made a prisoner, and on the 11th of the same month Moody set forth again, and reached the Haverstraw Mountains, which overlook the Hudson, amid a snow-storm, and by the 15th he captured the despatches and their bearer; but so great were the hardships undergone that some of his men perished of cold and hunger. For this, Moody, who had been one year a volunteer, and three an ensign, was promoted to a lieutenancy.

About the middle of May the adjutant-general, being in want of intelligence, suggested to Moody the capture of another 'rebel mail;' and on the night of the 15th he set forth with four well-armed men, and after proceeding many miles, he found himself beset on three sides by a considerable number of the Colonial troops, who, having secret intelligence of his movements from New York, were then in ambush awaiting him.

On the fourth side lay a ridge of cliffs, so steep and rugged that to escape by it seemed impossible. There was no alternative now but to surrender and die, or leap down the cliffs, and in the dark. Calling on his men to follow him, the daring Moody sprang down, and as the soil was soft at the base, they were all unhurt, though seriously shaken. They now crossed a swamp, only to find themselves before a still stronger party of the enemy when day was breaking. To advance was impossible, as there was no doubt that they had been betrayed. They contrived to creep away unseen, and travelled till they gained the North River within four miles of New York. Just when Moody conceived they were out of all peril, a party of seventy men, under arms, issued from a wayside house, and opened fire upon him. 'He received one general discharge, and thought it a miracle he escaped unwounded; the bullets fell like a storm of hail around him; his clothes were shot through in several places; one ball pierced his hat, another grazed his arm. Without at all slackening his pace, he turned round, discharged his musket, and killed one of his pursuers; still they kept up their fire, each man discharging his piece as fast as he could load; but gaining an opportunity of soon doubling upon them, he gave them the slip, and in due time arrived once more safe in New York.'*

* 'Political Magazine,' vol. iv.

He departed again on the same perilous errand for Pompton, on the 18th May, conceiving that the foe would think they had sufficiently scared him from further expeditions of the kind. With four resolute fellows, he crossed the Hakinsack river by a canoe which he concealed among the long, rank sedges, and soon fell in with an American patrol, whose object was to prevent the conveyance of provisions to the British headquarters. He was ordered to stand or be instantly shot. With his four men, he fired, and then gave an order as if he had a strong force in reserve, on which the patrol fled.

A four miles' march brought them to the Saddle river, which had overflown its banks; the night was gloomy and tempestuous, and a body of American regulars held the bridge. He was thus compelled to ford the river, a task of great danger and difficulty. Rumour said that 'Moody was out,' and the mail instead of being sent as usual, by the way of Pompton, was sent by another way under a guard. Selecting a man whose voice, face, and tall figure resembled his own, he sent him to a certain justice of the peace in another neighbourhood, who at once fled to the woods, giving out everywhere that Moody was there. To that quarter the Colonial troops were at once despatched, while Moody captured the mail at another, and brought in all the despatches relative to the important interview between General Washington and Count Rochambeau in Connecticut. After this, Moody captured two more bags of despatches, in one expedition being aided by his younger brother, who must have been a mere lad, as he himself was then only in his twenty-fourth year.

In October, 1781, Captain and Brevet-Major George Beckwith, of the 37th Regiment, then aide-de-camp to Lieutenant-General Baron Knyphausen, informed Mr. Moody that a person named Addison had suggested a project of great moment—to bring off all the books and papers of the Congress! This Englishman had held some inferior office under Thompson, the Secretary to the Congress, and, being a prisoner of war, it was resolved that he should be released, return to his old employment at Philadelphia, where Moody would visit him—Major Beckwith vouching for his fidelity.

Moody undertook this perilous duty with the full knowledge that Addison might deem him well worth betrayal; thus he stipulated that the former was to be kept in ignorance that he had undertaken it. Moody took with him only his brother John and another Scotsman, named Marr, on whom he could rely, and a night—the 2nd of November—and place were appointed where they were to meet the traitor Addison, in the vicinity of Philadelphia.

They met him duly, but Lieutenant Moody kept a little in the background lest his figure, which was a tall one, might be recognised by Addison, who was at once accosted by his brother and Marr. The former told them that everything was ready; that he had obtained access to the most secret archives of the Senate House, and that next evening he would deliver up all the books and papers they were in quest of. Mutual assurances of fidelity were exchanged. They crossed the river together in a boat for Philadelphia, unaccompanied by Moody, whose first foreboding or suspicion was a right one, for the perfidious Addison had already sold him and his companions to the Congress!

Pretending that the precise time at which their plans could be executed was dubious, Addison suggested that Lieutenant Moody should remain at the ferryhouse opposite the city till they returned; and before departing he told a keeper of it that the visitor was an officer of the New Jersey Brigade, which the woman understood to be the force of that name under Washington. To avoid notice, Moody affected indisposition, and remained in a room upstairs, but with his arms ready, awake and on the watch.

Next morning he overheard a man saying to another:

'There is the very devil to pay in Philadelphia! There has been a plot to break into the Senate House, but one fellow has betrayed two who are now taken, and a party of soldiers are coming to seize a third, who is concealed somewhere hereabouts.'

On hearing this alarming intelligence, Moody took his pistols, rushed downstairs, and escaped. He was not one hundred yards from the house when he saw the soldiers enter it! He attempted to gain shelter in a thicket by leaping a fence, but found the latter lined by cavalry, and got concealment in a ditch, under the overhanging weeds and shrubs. There he lay for some time with pistols cocked, and heard the soldiers pass and repass within ten yards of him. From the ditch they went all round an adjacent field, where he could see them probing the stacks of Indian corn with their bayonets; and conceiving rightly that they would not explore there again, when night fell he sought shelter in one; and as his pursuers were still about, he remained in an upright position in the stack, without food or drink, for two days and nights, enduring excruciating torture. The stacks were destitute of corn, being merely straw.

After a time he ventured, in the dark, to the bank of the Delaware, and finding a small boat, while full of grief for the peril of his brother and friend, pushed off and rowed up the river; and though many times accosted by people on the water, he replied to them 'in the rough phraseology of the gentlemen of the oar;' and escaping unsuspected, after many adventures and circuitous marches, all undergone in the night, in five days from the time of his landing, he reached in safety the British headquarters at New York. There was not the slightest hope that his brother would be pardoned, for the treason of Arnold and many recent events had infused much rancour in the minds of the contending parties. Tried by court-martial, the two prisoners were sentenced to death and executed. John Moody was in his twenty-third year, and on learning his fate, his father—an old and deserving soldier—lost his reason. The American bulletin runs thus in the papers of the time;

PHILADELPHIA, November 14, 1781.

'On Thursday morning last, Lawrence Marr and John Moody, of Colonel Barton's Tory Regiment, were apprehended on suspicion of being spies. On the following day they were indulged with a candid hearing before a board of officers, whereof the Hon. Major-General the Marquis de la Fayette was president. It appears that their business was to steal and carry off the Secret Journals of Congress to New York.... The Board having reported to the Hon. Board of War, their opinion was approved, and Marr and Moody were both sentenced to die, which sentence was executed on Moody between the hours of eleven and twelve; Marr is respited until the 23rd instant.... The enemy, who at this period seem equal to no exploits superior to robbing mails and stealing papers, may thank their beloved friend Benedict Arnold for the untimely death of the young man, who was only in his twenty-third year.'

Of the future career of the adventurous James Moody we unfortunately know nothing.

'OLD MINORCA;'

OR,

GENERAL MURRAY OF THE SCOTS FUSILIERS.

'OLD MINORCA;'
OR,
GENERAL MURRAY OF THE SCOTS FUSILIERS.

It is strange that the life of this old officer has found no place in any biographical work; yet he was the successor of Wolfe at Quebec, and as such completed the conquest of Canada. He defended Minorca, and repelled with scorn De Crillon's offer of a million sterling to betray that post; and who, when an old lieutenant-general, was arraigned before a court-martial by the brilliant Sir William Draper, whom he signally baffled.

James Murray was the fifth son of Alexander, fourth Lord Elibank, who in 1698 married Elizabeth Stirling, daughter of a surgeon in Edinburgh. Following the example of his elder brother Patrick, who served as a colonel in the Carthagena Expedition under Lord Cathcart, he betook him to a military life, and on the 5th January, 1750-51, was lieutenant-colonel of the 15th Foot, then on the Irish Establishment (Millans' Lists). During five years subsequently his regiment was still serving in Ireland, and in 1757 he commanded in Sir John Mordaunt's expedition to Rochefort. On this service ten battalions of infantry sailed from the Isle of Wight on board eighteen ships of the line, attended by frigates, fire-ships, and bombketches, under Sir Edward Hawke and Admiral Knowles, on the 8th September, 'attended,' says Smollett, 'with the prayers of every man warmed with the love of his country and solicitous for her honour;' but, like most of those buccaneering expeditions to the coast of France which disgraced the reigns of the two first Georges, it proved a failure.

The fortifications of Aix, an island at the mouth of the Charente, and midway between Oleron and the mainland, were cannonaded, blown up, and demolished, at the cost of a million of money; 'after which,' says Smollett, 'the officers, in a council of war, took the final resolution of returning to England, choosing rather to oppose the frowns of an angry sovereign, the murmurs of an incensed nation, and the contempt of mankind, than fight a handful of dastardly militia.'

Charged with disobedience of orders and instructions, Sir John Mordaunt was arraigned at Whitehall before a court-martial, which sat for six days, from the 14th to the 20th December, 1758. Among the members were Lord Tyrawly, Brigadier Huske (who was engaged at Falkirk), and Colonel William Kingsley, of Minden fame, the ancestor of the author of 'Alton Locke.' Wolfe was a witness for the prosecution, as was also 'Mr. Secretary William Pitt;' and among those for the prisoner was Colonel Murray of the 15th, Cornwallis, and the two admirals. By the court Mordaunt was unanimously acquitted.

We next find James Murray at the capture of Louisbourg, in 1758. ('Records 21st Foot.')

Here the attacking force consisted of fourteen battalions of infantry, with 600 provincials, and 300 artillery—13,094 men in all, under Major-General Amherst. The place was taken by capitulation, when the garrison, which consisted of 5,637 men (including the battalions of Volontaires Etrangers, Cambize, Artois, and Burgundy), under the Chevalier de Dracour, laid down their arms.

On the 24th of October, 1759, James Murray was made Colonel Commandant of the 60th, or Royal Americans, and at the capture of Quebec he served as brigadier in command of the left wing; and after the fall of Wolfe and surrender of the city—the fortifications of which were in tolerable order, though the houses were completely demolished—he was left with a garrison of 5,000 men to defend it; while the rest of the forces returned to Britain with the fleet, which sailed soon, lest it should be locked up by ice in the River St. Lawrence. ('Ramsay's Military Memoirs.')

In the spring of 1760, Monsieur de Levi, at the head of 13,000 men, took the field and appeared on the Heights of Abraham, above Quebec, when Murray, who had lost 1,000 men by scurvy, had but two courses open to him—to march out and fight the enemy on the old battle-ground, where the grave of Montcalm still lay, or stand a siege within the ruins of the city. He chose the former, with equal spirit and resolution, and coming out, with only 3,000 effective men and twenty guns (says the 'Military Guide,' 1781), having to leave the rest of his force to overawe the inhabitants.

His daring struck the enemy with surprise, when he came in sight of them on the 28th of April, so vast was the disparity in force! He found their first column advantageously posted on high ground covered with trees, and their main body in line in its rear. He attacked the first column with such fury and intrepidity that it was hurled in disorder on the second which, however, stood firm, and received him with a fire so close and well directed that his troops staggered under it. The strength and weight of the French force were such that his flank and even his rear were menaced, and after an obstinate struggle, with the loss of 1,000 of all ranks, he was compelled to fall back, but in good order, behind the walls of Quebec.

Undismayed, the ardour of his troops, who had only salt rations to live upon, redoubled; and though the French began to invest the city in regular form on the very evening of their victory, it was the 11th of May before their guns opened. Murray had on the walls 132 pieces of cannon, many of which he was unable to handle for want of men; and with all his bravery he must have been compelled to surrender, had not the arrival of Lord Colville's squadron in the St. Lawrence on the 15th, and the destruction of the French fleet there by some of his advanced frigates, so disheartened De Levi that he retired with precipitation, abandoning all his provisions, stores, and artillery, of which Murray instantly possessed himself.

Montreal was the only place of any consequence now held by France in Canada. There General the Marquis de Vaudrieul, governor of the province, commanded all that remained of the French army; and as a portion of General Amherst's plan for its reduction, Colonel Haviland, of the 45th Regiment, with the troops under his command, took possession of an island in Lake Champlain, while General Murray, at the head of all that could be spared from Quebec, came by water to Montreal, which was attacked by 10,000 men, and capitulated in September, 1760, after which the French lost all footing in America, the operations in which were confined to Colonel Grant's expedition against the Cherokees.

On the 10th July, 1762, Murray was gazetted major-general, and in the following year was made Governor of Canada, the conquest of which he completed and brought steadily under British sway. He was made a lieutenant-general in May, 1772, in which year we find him Governor of Minorca, with a salary of £730, and Sir William Draper, K.B., Lieutenant-Governor, with the same allowance. On the 10th February, 1783, he was made full general.

The British Government, anxious to have a naval station further up the Mediterranean than Gibraltar, took possession of Minorca in 1708, and it was confirmed to them by the Treaty of Utrecht, and remained in possession of Britain till 1758, when it was taken by a French fleet and army, after the failure of an attempt to relieve it, which led to the tragic death of the unfortunate Admiral Byng. At the peace of 1763 Minorca was restored to Britain, but in 1782 it was retaken by the Spaniards, after a defence by General Murray which was deemed one of the most brilliant military events of the age.

Long and narrow, it is thirty-two miles by eight in extent, with Mount Toro in its centre, nearly 5,000 feet in height, and has two of the finest harbours in the world, Fornella and Port Mahon, the latter of which is defended by Fort St. Philip, on a rocky promontory of difficult access from the land side.

Murray's garrison in Fort St. Philip consisted of only 2,692 men, of which number, including the 51st Foot (under Colonel Pringle), only 2,016 were regulars, 200 seamen of the Minorca sloop-of-war; and 400 of these were invalids—'worn-out soldiers,' as he states, sent from Britain in 1775, and all were more or less unhealthy. 'The officers of the four regular regiments,' says General Murray, in his defence of himself, 'were in much better health than the privates. This is easily accounted for, for all of them (viz., the British), for eleven years, lived on salt provisions. The quantity of vegetables they consumed and the wine they drank, though it prevented the immediate efforts of scurvy, could not hinder it from tainting the blood. The officers had, until we were invested, lived entirely on fresh provisions, and even after, that we were confined to the Fort, had wine and other refreshments bought at their own expense. They likewise passed the day in the Castle Square, and were only at night confined in the damp air of the souterreins; but even the officers, with all these advantages, began to be infected.' (Political Magazine, 1783.)

On Minorca being menaced by a siege, Murray sent his wife and family to Leghorn, and, preparing for a vigorous defence, shut himself up in Fort St. Philip, for hostilities had now begun with Spain (Scottish Register, 1794). He scuttled and sank the Minorca sloop-of-war at the entrance of the harbour, to prevent the approach of the enemy's ships, and on the 20th of August found himself blocked up by a French and Spanish army, which landed in Minorca without opposition, to the number of 16,000 men, under the Duc de Crillon, who took his title from a village of that name in the Department of Vaucluse, and who subsequently distinguished himself at the great siege of Gibraltar. He was afterwards joined by six French battalions from Toulon, under the Count de Falkenhagen.

So resolute was the defence made by General Murray, that the Duc de Crillon soon began to despair of reducing the place, even with the vast forces he had opposed to it, and secretly offered him (doubtless by order of the King of France) the immense bribe of one million sterling for the surrender of the fortress. Indignant at such an insult, he addressed the following reply to the French commander:

FORT ST. PHILIP, October 16, 1781.

'When your brave ancestor, so celebrated in the "Memoires" of Sully, was desired by his sovereign to assassinate the Duc de Guise, he returned the answer that you should have done when you were charged to assassinate the character of a man whose birth is as illustrious as your own, or that of the Duc de Guise. I can have no further communication with you, but in arms. If you have any humanity, pray send clothing for your unfortunate prisoners in my possession; leave it at a distance to be taken for them, because I will admit of no contact for the future, but such as is hostile to the most inveterate degree.'

'Your letter,' replied the Duke, 'restores each of us to our place; it confirms me in the high opinion I always had of you, and I accept your last proposal with pleasure.'

As ammunition was becoming scarce, on the 15th of the same month the general issued an order that cannon were not to be fired at single men, for the younger officers of the garrison, becoming weary of confinement, were wont to turn their guns 'at Bagats, or figures dressed like men, which the enemy exhibited in ridicule of our ineffectual firing,' and, curiously enough, this order was one of the chief charges brought against him, by Sir William Draper, at a subsequent time.

By the 5th of February Murray's garrison, by the ravages of inveterate scurvy, was so reduced, that only 660 men were fit for duty, and out of these 560 were tainted with the disease. 'No words,' says Captain Schomberg, in his 'Naval Chronology,' 'can paint the heroic valour and resolution of the brave troops of this garrison, which had to capitulate.'

'Such was the uncommon spirit of the King's soldiers' (to quote the Hon. James Murray's despatch), 'that they concealed their disorders and inability, rather than go into hospital; several men died on guard, after having stood sentry, their fate not being discovered till called upon for the relief, when it became their turn to mount again. Perhaps a more noble or more tragical scene was never exhibited, than the march of the garrison of St. Philip through the Spanish and French armies. It consisted of no more than 600 old and decrepit soldiers, 200 seamen, 120 of the Royal Artillery, 20 Corsicans, and 25 Greeks, Turks, Moors, and Jews. The two armies were drawn up in two lines, forming a way for us to march through; they consisted of 14,000 men, and reached from the glacis to George Town, where our battalion laid down their arms, declaring that they had surrendered to GOD ALONE, having the satisfaction to know that the victors could not plume themselves on taking a hospital. Such were the distressing figures of our men, that many of the Spanish and French troops are said to have shed tears as they passed them.'

His casualties were 108.

The Lieutenant-Governor of Minorca, Sir William Draper, K.C.B., a famous officer in those days, the conqueror of Manilla (who erected on Clifton Downs a beautiful cenotaph to the memory of the Old English 79th Foot, disbanded in 1763), thought proper, on the return of the garrison to Britain, to accuse General Murray of bad conduct during the siege, of profusion and waste of money and stores, of extortion, rapacity and cruelty. On these startling charges, the general was brought before a court-martial at the Horse Guards, in November, 1782, the proceedings of which were taken in shorthand by Mr. Gurney. The President was Sir George Howard, K.B., and among the members was Lieutenant-General Cyrus Trapaud, familiarly known as 'Old Trap,' the friend of Wolfe. 'In our attendance on this court-martial,' says a print of the time, 'it struck us as an uncommon circumstance, that although it was composed of very old officers, and of long service, yet all appeared hale, vigorous, and remarkably stout men, literally, to all appearance, fit to carry a musket... General Murray appeared much broke, but had the remains of a very stout man, he looked the old soldier! Sir William Draper looked exceedingly well, and in the flower of his age. His star was very conspicuous, and his left arm always so carefully disposed as never to eclipse it.'

General Murray was fully and honourably acquitted of all the charges, save two that were trivial, and for which he was sentenced to be reprimanded, though he urged that his 'age and broken constitution, worn out in the defence of Fort St. Philip,' were such that he probably could serve his country no more. On the finding of the Court being communicated to the King by the Judge Advocate, Sir Charles Gould, he approved of 'the zeal, courage, and firmness with which General Murray had conducted himself in the defence of Fort St. Philip, as well as his former long and approved services,' and the reprimand was dispensed with. His Majesty further expressed his concern that such an officer as Sir William Draper should have suffered his judgment to have become so perverted as to bring such charges against a superior officer. The Court, apprehensive, from some intemperate expressions made use of by the former to the latter in a document, that the veterans would resort to their pistols, prescribed a form of apology to be made use of by Sir William, and to be acquiesced in by General Murray; but this affair, which in its day made much noise in the military world and in London society, did not quite end here, as the general was afterwards prosecuted by his countryman, Mr. Sutherland, Judge Advocate of Minorca, for suspending him in his office, and £5,000 damages were awarded him—a sum for which he was reimbursed by the House of Commons.

On the 5th June, 1789, he was made colonel of 21st Royal Scots Fusiliers; and died on the 18th of June, 1794, at Beaufort House, near Bath, in Sussex, the seat of Sir James B. Burgess, Bart., Commissioner of Excise in Scotland. In military circles he was long remembered as 'Old Minorca.'

He left an MS. diary of his defence of Quebec, which was in possession of Mr. Robert Blackwood, publisher, of Edinburgh, in 1849, but appears never to have been printed.

THE END.

BILLING AND SONS, PRINTERS, GUILDFORD AND LONDON.