Sir Harry and Lady Smith having invited General and Mrs. Beckwith to come over from Paris and stay with them during the time of the Exhibition, the General replied, “You must understand that if I should come to England, I shall certainly present my wife to Juana. As to the Exhibition, it will be a thing to be seen and felt, but your house will be little better than a hotel for a part of the time, and I think much more of your blessed faces than of all other possible sights. I had rather see John Bell’s ‘old divine countenance’ than that of Raphael himself.”
That summer of 1857—the summer of the Indian Mutiny—filled the letters of Harry Smith and Charles Beckwith with gloomy forebodings. It is interesting to see the reminiscence of the old Light Division contained in the last words of Beckwith’s letter of the 18th September: “Do you think ‘Young Varmint’[228] can get to Lucknow? I have some doubts. God protect him and bless him.”
General Beckwith did not achieve the visit to Manchester in 1857, but wrote on 15th January, 1858, that he would like to come in the following July. He says—
“I am glad to hear from you, because you really know something of what is going on in the world, and, above all, something of the men who take an active part in directing its affairs. I have nothing but my own theories and the newspapers to direct me, two fallacious guides. It is impossible not to shed a tear on H. Havelock’s grave. I wish he could have once more embraced his wife and daughters. There is another thing, Harry, that hangs on my mind, and that is Punjaub Lawrence. As far as I can see, nothing was foreseen and nothing was prevented from Calcutta. Everything—wisdom, counsel, action, foresight—came from Lahore. ‘There was a little city and few men within it, and there came a great king against it, and besieged it, and built great bulwarks against it. Now, there was found in it a poor wise man, and he by his wisdom delivered the city; yet no man remembered that same poor man.’... My wife, the most simple-minded creature living, sends her duty to Juana, and I send my love. Is John Bell on the staff of your district? My kind regards to him. I think with reverence and affection of his ‘old divine face.’”
In May Sir Harry Smith, Lord Burghersh and the Garter King at Arms were commissioned to go to Lisbon in attendance on the Marquis of Bath, who was to invest Don Pedro V., on the occasion of his marriage, with the Order of the Garter. The young queen, Princess Stephanie of Hohenzollern, visited the English Court on her way to Portugal, and Sir Harry and Lady Smith were bidden to a dinner-party at Buckingham Palace on 7th May, and to a State Ball on the 10th, given in connexion with her visit.
Lord Bath and his suite reached Lisbon on the 17th, a day before the Queen. They were present at various festivities held in honour of the royal wedding, and after the investiture at Belem Palace on the 27th were the guests of the King at a State Dinner. Sir Harry received from the King at this time the Order of St. Bento d’Aviz. It must have been very interesting to the Peninsular veteran thus to revisit under such different circumstances the place where he and George Simmons had bathed together forty-eight years before when convalescent from their wounds received at the Coa.[229]
Alas! the first letter he received from Charles Beckwith after his return told him, in sentences worthy of Thackeray, that Simmons, with his simple hero-worship of them both, had passed away.
“Todas son muertas! and amongst the rest old George Simmons, who went out of the world in a few moments with a smile on his countenance. The first thing George would ask was, ‘Where’s the rigiment? My word, the General and Sir Harry will soon be here.’”
He adds—