'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.