[28] See General Orders in [Appendix B.]
[29] See General Orders of the 18th of January and the 1st of February, 1809, inserted in [Appendix C.]
[30] At the battle of Corunna, Samuel Evans, a private in the Grenadier company of the Queen's Royal, was carried off among the wounded. He was landed in England, and died in the Military Hospital at Plymouth, on the 30th of January. A post mortem examination showed that he had been shot through the heart, yet had survived sixteen days. His heart is preserved in the museum of the above Hospital.
[31] See General Orders of the 18th of August, 1809, in [Appendix D.]
[32] General James Coates was eighty-two years of age, and at the time of his death, the fourth in seniority on the list of Generals. He was appointed Major of the Sixty-sixth Foot, the 3rd of October, 1766, and Lieutenant-Colonel of the Nineteenth Foot on the 11th of September, 1775; of which regiment he continued to be Lieutenant-Colonel, till the 20th of December, 1794, when he was promoted to the Colonelcy of the Second. His commissions as general officer bear date, Major-General, the 28th of April, 1790; Lieutenant-General, the 26th of January, 1797; and General, the 29th of April, 1802.
[33] Lieutenant-Colonel Williams had been with the regiment in the West Indies. It was probably in consequence of his previous sojourn in an enervating climate that he felt, shortly after arriving in India, symptoms of chronic disease, so alarming when encountered in the heated regions of the tropics. A return to Europe was the course recommended, but Colonel Williams said, that having been honoured by his King with the command of an old distinguished corps, which he had conducted to the shores of India, he thought it was not for a soldier in the prime of life to abandon his post on the first summons, and preferred making trial of an elevated climate on the Neilgherry-hills, in hopes of rejoining his friends and comrades, with whose fortunes he wished to identify his own. The change of abode was found to prolong his life, but did not remove the complaint; and when a reluctant consent was given to depart for England, it was too late: the hand of death was approaching him, and he died at Cannanore, on the Malabar coast, whither he had been conveyed for embarkation.
[34] When Lieutenant-Colonel Place was ordered to Koolapore, he was so far gone in constitution, that his medical advisers suggested the propriety of relinquishing the attempt to proceed on active service. "I go—if I die on the road," was the reply of this respected officer. On this occasion, as above stated, he was charged with the command of a light battalion, and although no fighting took place, he gained the confidence and esteem of all who came in contact with him. Whilst employed on this expedition, he was appointed, by the Commander-in-Chief in India, (Lord Combermere,) to take command of the 41st Regiment, which was also at Koolapore. Like the former appeal, this was also one of duty and honour; and private considerations were again disregarded. Colonel Place had a perfect sense of his danger which at this time was but too apparent to every observer. He assumed the command of the 41st; and by his death, which followed in a few weeks after, his profession was deprived of a brave soldier, and his associates of a valuable friend. Colonel Place had seen much hard service in command of the light company of the 77th Regiment, whilst employed in the Peninsula war, and he had been quartered in Jamaica as major of the same corps shortly before his appointment as Lieutenant-Colonel to the Queen's.
[35] See Memoir in [Appendix marked F.]
[36] The Right Honourable the late General Sir William Keppel, G.C.B., died at Paris on the 11th of December, 1834: he served fifty-six years in the army, having entered the service in the year 1778. He served in North America and the West Indies, and was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant-General in 1803; Colonel Commandant of the 60th Foot, 24th of April, 1806; Colonel of the 67th Foot, 1811; Colonel of the 2nd or Queen's, 1828; General in the army, 1813. Sir William Keppel was for many years Groom of the Bedchamber and Equerry to his Majesty King George IV., who bestowed on him the appointment of Governor of Guernsey, when it became vacant by the death of the Earl of Pembroke, in 1827.