CHAP. IV. Shewing how generals may descend upon particulars with a cat-o'-nine tails. Some extra Tales added. Historical, Comical, and Warlike all.

Crawfurd was no common character. He, like a gallant cotemporary of his, was not born to be a great general, but he certainly was a distinguished one,—the history of his division and the position which he held beyond the Coa in 1810, attest the fact. He had neither judgement, temper, nor discretion to fit him for a chief, and as a subordinate he required to be held with a tight rein, but his talents as a general of division were nevertheless of the first order. He received the three British regiments under his command, finished by the hands of a master in the art, Sir John Moore, and, as regiments, they were faultless; but to Crawfurd belonged the chief merit of making them the war brigade which they became, alike the admiration of their friends and foes. How he made them so I am about to show, but how such another is to be made now that his system has fallen into disrepute, will be for futurity to determine.

I think I see a regiment of those writers who are just now taking the cat by the tail, parading for a day's march under that immortal chief—that he furnishes them with an ink-bottle for a canteen, fills their knapsacks with foolscap, their mouths with mouldy biscuit, and starts them off with sloped pens. They go along with the buoyancy of a corps of reporters reconnoitring for a memorandum, and they very quickly catch one and a Tartar to the bargain, for the monotony of the road is relieved by the crossing of a fine broad stream, and over the stream is a very fine plank to preserve the polish of Warren's jet on the feet of the pedestrian—they all jump gaily towards the plank, but they are pulled up by a grim gentleman with a drawn sword, who, with a voice of thunder, desires them to keep their ranks and march through the stream. Well! this is all mighty pleasant, but now that they are up to their middles in the water, there surely can be no harm in stopping half a minute to lave a few handfuls of it into their parched mouths. I think I see the astonishment of their editorial nerves when they find a dozen lashes well bestowed a posteriori upon each, by way of their further refreshment and clearing off scores for that portion of the day's work (for the General was a man who gave no credit on those occasions). He had borrowed a leaf from the history of the land-crabs, and suffered neither mire nor water to disturb the order of his march with impunity.

Now I daresay he would have had to flog an editor a dozen times before he had satisfied him that it was to his advantage; but a soldier is open to conviction, and such was the manner of making one of the finest and most effective divisions that that or any other army ever saw.

Where soldiers are to be ruled, there is more logic in nine tails of a cat than in the mouths of a hundred orators; it requires very little argument to prove, and I'll defy the most eloquent preacher, (with the unknown tongue to boot,) to persuade a regiment to ford a river where there is a bridge to conduct them over dry-shod, or to prevent them drinking when they are in that river if they happen to feel thirsty, let him promise them what he will as a reward for their obedience. It is like preaching to his own flock on the subject of their eternal welfare (and I make the comparison with all due reverence); they would all gladly arrive at the end he aims at, but at the same time how few will take the necessary steps to do so, and how many prefer their momentary present enjoyment? So it was with the soldiers, but with this difference, that Crawfurd's cat forced them to take the right road whether they would or no, and the experiment once made carried conviction with it, that the comfort of every individual in the division materially depended on the rigid exaction of his orders, for he shewed that on every ordinary march he made it a rule to halt for a few minutes every third or fourth mile, (dependent on the vicinity of water,) that every soldier carried a canteen capable of containing two quarts, and that if he only took the trouble to fill it before starting, and again, if necessary, at every halt, it contained more than he would or ought to drink in the interim; and that therefore every pause he made in a river for the purpose of drinking was disorderly, because a man stopping to drink delayed the one behind him proportionately longer, and so on progressively to the rear of the column.

In like manner the filing past dirty or marshy parts of the road in place of marching boldly through them or filing over a plank or narrow bridge in place of taking the river with the full front of their column in march, he proved to demonstration on true mathematical principles, that with the numbers of those obstacles usually encountered on a day's march, it made a difference of several hours in their arrival at their bivouac for the night. That in indulging by the way, they were that much longer labouring under their load of arms, ammunition, and necessaries, besides bringing them to their bivouac in darkness and discomfort; it very likely, too, got them thoroughly drenched with rain, when the sole cause of their delay had been to avoid a partial wetting, which would have been long since dried while seated at ease around their camp-fires; and if this does not redeem Crawfurd and his cat, I give it up.

The general and his divisional code, as already hinted at, was at first much disliked; probably, he enforced it, in the first instance, with unnecessary severity, and it was long before those under him could rid themselves of that feeling of oppression which it had inculcated upon their minds. It is due, however, to the memory of the gallant general to say that punishment for those disorders was rarely necessary after the first campaign; for the system, once established, went on like clock-work, and the soldiers latterly became devotedly attached to him; for while he exacted from them the most rigid obedience, he was, on his own part, keenly alive to every thing they had a right to expect from him in return, and woe befel the commissary who failed to give a satisfactory reason for any deficiencies in his issues. It is stated that one of them went to the commander-in-chief to complain that he had been unable to procure bread for the light division, and that General Crawfurd had threatened that if they were not supplied within a given time, he would put him in the guard-house. "Did he?" said his lordship; "then I would recommend you to find the bread, for if he said so, by ——, he'll do it!"

Having in this chapter flogged every man who had any shadow of claim to such a distinction, I shall now proceed and place myself along with my regiment to see that they prove themselves worthy of the pains taken in their instruction.

From the position which the light division then held, their commander must have been fully satisfied in his own mind that their military education had not been neglected, for certes it required every man to be furnished with a clear head, a bold heart, and a clean pair of heels—all three being liable to be put in requisition at any hour by day or night. It was no place for reefing topsails and making all snug, but one which required the crew to be constantly at quarters; for, unlike their nautical brethren, the nearer a soldier's shoulders are to the rocks the less liable he is to be wrecked—and there they had more than enough of play in occupying a front of twenty-five miles with that small division and some cavalry. The chief of the 1st German hussars meeting our commandant one morning, "Well, Colonel," says the gallant German in broken English, "how you do?" "O, tolerably well, thank you, considering that I am obliged to sleep with one eye open." "By Gott," says the other, "I never sleeps at all."

Colonel Beckwith at this time held the pass of Barba del Puerco with four companies of the Rifles, and very soon experienced the advantage of having an eye alive, for he had some active neighbours on the opposite side of the river who had determined to beat up his quarters by way of ascertaining the fact.

The Padrè of the village, it appeared, was a sort of vicar of Bray, who gave information to both sides so long as accounts remained pretty equally balanced between them, but when the advance of the French army for the subjugation of Portugal became a matter of certainty, he immediately chose that which seemed to be the strongest, and it was not ours.

The Padrè was a famous hand over a glass of grog, and where amusements were so scarce, it was good fun for our youngsters to make a Padrè glorious, which they took every opportunity of doing; and as is not unusual with persons in that state, (laymen as well as Padrès,) he invariably fancied himself the only sober man of the party, so that the report was conscientiously given when he went over to the French General Ferey, who commanded the division opposite, and staked his reputation as a Padrè, that the English officers in his village were in the habit of getting blind drunk every night, and that he had only to march over at midnight to secure them almost without resistance.

Ferey was a bold enterprising soldier, (I saw his body in death after the battle of Salamanca); he knew to a man the force of the English in the village, and probably did not look upon the attempt as very desperate were they even at their posts ready to receive him; but as the chances seemed to be in favour of every enemy's head being "nailed to his pillow," the opportunity was not to be resisted, and accordingly, at midnight on the 19th of March, he assembled his force silently at the end of the bridge. The shadows of the rocks which the rising moon had just cast over the place prevented their being seen, and the continuous roar of the mountain torrent, which divided them, prevented their being heard even by our double sentry posted at the other end of the bridge within a few yards of them. Leaving a powerful support to cover his retreat in the event of a reverse, Ferey at the head of six hundred chosen grenadiers burst forth so silently and suddenly, that, of our double sentry on the bridge, the one was taken and the other bayonetted without being able to fire off their pieces. A sergeant's party higher up among the rocks had just time to fire off as an alarm, and even the remainder of the company on picquet under O'Hare had barely time to jump up and snatch their rifles when the enemy were among them. O'Hare's men, however, though borne back and unable to stop them for an instant, behaved nobly, retiring in a continued hand-to-hand personal encounter with their foes to the top of the pass, when the remaining companies under Sidney Beckwith having just started from their sleep, rushed forward to their support, and with a thundering discharge, tumbled the attacking column into the ravine below, where, passing the bridge under cover of the fire of their supporting body, they resumed their former position, minus a considerable number of their best and bravest. The colonel, while urging the fight, observed a Frenchman within a yard or two, taking deliberate aim at his head. Stooping suddenly down and picking up a stone, he immediately shyed it at him, calling him at the same time a "scoundrel, to get out of that." It so far distracted the fellow's attention that while the gallant Beckwith's cap was blown to atoms, the head remained untouched.

The whole concern was but the affair of a few minutes, but we nevertheless looked upon it as no inconsiderable addition to our regimental feather, for the appointed alarm post of one of the companies had carried it to a place where it happened that they were not wanted, so that there were but three companies actually engaged; and therefore with something less than half their numbers they had beaten off six hundred of the élite of the French army. But our chief pride arose from its being the first and last night-attempt which the enemy ever made to surprise a British post in that army.

Of the worthy pastor I never heard more—I know not whether the bold Ferey paid the price of the information he had brought, in gold, or with an ounce of lead; but certain it is that his flock were without ghostly consolation during the remainder of our sojourn—not that it was much sought after at that particular time, for the village damsels had already begun running up a score of peccadillos, and it was of little use attempting to wipe it out until the final departure of their heretical visitors.

Among the wounded who were left on the field by the enemy, there was a French sergeant whom I have often heard our officers speak of with much admiration—he was a fine handsome young fellow, alike romantic in his bravery, and in devotion to his emperor and his country—he had come on with the determination to conquer or to die, and having failed in the first, he seemed resolved not to be balked in the other, which a ball through a bad part of the thigh had placed him in the high road for, and he, therefore, resisted every attempt to save him, with the utmost indignation, claiming it as a matter of right to be allowed to die on the field where he had fallen. Our good, honest, rough diamonds, however, who were employed in collecting the wounded, were equally determined that the point in dispute should only be settled between him and the doctor in the proper place, and accordingly they shouldered him off to the hospital whether he would or no. But even there he continued as untameable as a hyena—his limb was in such a state that nothing but amputation could save his life—yet nothing would induce him to consent to it—he had courage to endure any thing, but nothing could reconcile him to receive any thing but blows from his enemies. I forget how, or in what way, the amputation of the limb was at length accomplished. To the best of my recollection death had already laid a hand upon him, and it was done while he was in a state of insensibility. But be that as it may, it was done, and the danger and the fit of heroics having travelled with the departed limb, he lived to thank his preservers for the brotherly kindness he had experienced at their hands, and took a grateful and affectionate farewell of them when his health was sufficiently restored to permit his being removed to the care of his countrymen.

Shortly after this affair at Barba del Puerco the French army under Massena came down upon Ciudad Rodrigo, preparatory to the invasion of Portugal, and obliged the light division to take up a more concentrated position.

It is not my intention to take notice of the movements of the army further than is necessary to illustrate the anecdotes I relate; but I cannot, on this occasion, resist borrowing a leaf out of Napier's admirable work, to shew the remarkable state of discipline which those troops had been brought to—for while I have no small portion of personal vanity to gratify in recording the fact of my having been for many years after an associate in all the enterprises of that gallant band, I consider it more particularly a duty which every military writer owes to posterity, (be his pretensions great or humble,) to shew what may be effected in that profession by diligence and perseverance.

The light division, and the cavalry attached to it, was at this period so far in advance of every other part of the army that their safety depended on themselves alone, for they were altogether beyond the reach of human aid—their force consisted of about four thousand infantry, twelve hundred cavalry, and a brigade of horse artillery—and yet with this small force did Crawfurd, trusting to his own admirable arrangements, and the surprising discipline of his troops, maintain a position which was no position, for three months, within an hour's march of six thousand horsemen, and two hours' march from sixty thousand infantry, of a brave, experienced, and enterprising enemy, who was advancing in the confidence of certain victory.

Napier says, "His situation demanded a quickness and intelligence in the troops, the like of which has seldom been known. Seven minutes sufficed for the division to get under arms in the middle of the night, and a quarter of an hour, night or day, to bring it in order of battle to the alarm posts, with the baggage loaded and assembled at a convenient distance in the rear. And this not upon a concerted signal, or as a trial, but at all times, and certain!"

And thus, in humble imitation of her master-man, did Mother Coleman, one fine morning, mount her donkey, and join her French lover to war against her lord.

While the troops of the light division, as already noticed, were strutting about with the consciousness of surpassing excellence, menacing and insulting a foe for which their persons' knapsacks and all would barely have sufficed for a luncheon—a dish of mortification was served up for those of our corps, by the hands of their better half, which was not easy of digestion. To speak of the wife of a regiment is so very unusual as to imply that she must have been some very great personage—and without depriving her of the advantage of such a magnificent idea, I shall only say that she was the only wife they had got—for they landed at Lisbon with eleven hundred men and only one woman.

By what particular virtues she had attained such a dignified position among them, I never clearly made out, further than that she had arrived at years of discretion, was what is commonly called a useful woman, and had seen some service. She was the wife of a sturdy German, who plyed in the art of shoemaking, whenever his duties in the field permitted him to resort to that species of amusement, so that it appeared that she had beauty enough to captivate a cobbler, she had money enough to command the services of a jackass, and finally she proved she had wit enough to sell us all, which she did the first favourable opportunity—for, after plying for some months at the tail of her donkey at the tail of the regiment, and fishing in all the loose dollars which were floating about in gentlemen's pockets, (by those winning ways which ladies know so well how to use when such favourable opportunities offer,) she finally bolted off to the enemy, bag and baggage, carrying away old Coleman's all and awl.

It was one of those French leave-takings which man is heir to, but we eventually got over it, under the deepest obligation all the time for the sympathy manifested by our friends of the 43d and 52d.

The movements of the enemy were at length unshackled by the fall of Ciudad Rodrigo, after a desperate defence, which gave immortal glory to its old governor Herrasti, and his brave Spanish garrison—and although it may appear that I am saying one word in honour of the Spaniards for the purpose of giving two to the British, yet my feelings are too national to permit me to pass over a fact which redounds so much to the glory of our military history—namely, that in this, the year 1810, the French were six weeks in wresting from the Spaniards the same fortress which we, in the year 1812, carried, with fire and sword, out of the hands of the French in eleven days!

Now that the enemy's movements were unshackled, the cloud, which for months had been gathering over Portugal, began to burst—and, sharp as Crawfurd and his division looked before, it now behoved them to look somewhat sharper. Had he acted in conformity with his instructions, he had long ere this been behind the Coa, but deeply enamoured of his separate command as ever youth was of his mistress, he seemed resolved that nothing but force should part them; and having gradually given ground, as necessity compelled, the 23d of July found him with his back on the river, and his left resting on the fortress of Almeida, determined to abide a battle, with about five thousand men of all arms to oppose the whole French army.

I shall leave to abler pens the description of the action that followed, and which (as might have been foreseen, while it was highly honourable to the officers and troops engaged) ended in their being driven across the Coa with a severe loss. My business is with a youth who had the day before joined the division. The history of his next day's adventure has beguiled me of many a hearty laugh, and although I despair of being able to communicate it to my readers with any thing like the humour with which I received it from an amiable and gallant friend, yet I cannot resist giving it such as it rests on my remembrance.

Mr. Rogers, as already stated, had, the day before, arrived from England, as an officer of one of the civil departments attached to the light division, and as might be expected on finding himself all at once up with the outposts of the army, he was full of curiosity and excitement. Equipped in a huge cocked hat, and a hermaphrodite sort of scarlet coat, half military and half civil, he was dancing about with his budget of inquiries, when chance threw him in the way of the gallant and lamented Jock Mac Culloch, at the time a lieutenant in the Rifles, and who was in the act of marching off a company to relieve one of the picquets for the night.

Mac Culloch, full of humour, seeing the curiosity of the fresh arrival, said, "Come, Rogers, my boy, come along with me, you shall share my beefsteak, you shall share my boat-cloak, and it will go hard with me but you shall see a Frenchman, too, before we part in the morning."

The invitation was not to be resisted, and away went Rogers on the spur of the moment.

The night turned out a regular Tam o'Shanter's night, or, if the reader pleases, a Wellington night, for it is a singular fact that almost every one of his battles was preceded by such a night;—the thunder rolled, the lightning flashed, and all the fire-engines in the world seemed playing upon the lightning, and the devoted heads of those exposed to it. It was a sort of night that was well calculated to be a damper to a bolder spirit than the one whose story I am relating; but he, nevertheless, sheltered himself as he best could, under the veteran's cloak, and put as good a face upon it as circumstances would permit.

As usual, an hour before day-break, Mac Culloch, resigning the boat-cloak to his dosing companion, stood to his arms, to be ready for whatever changes daylight might have in store for him: nor had he to wait long, for day had just begun to dawn when the sharp crack from the rifle of one of the advanced sentries announced the approach of the enemy, and he had just time to counsel his terrified bedfellow to make the best of his way back to the division, while he himself awaited to do battle. Nor had he much time for preparation, for, as Napier says, "Ney, seeing Crawfurd's false dispositions, came down upon them with the stoop of an eagle. Four thousand horsemen, and a powerful artillery, swept the plain, and Loison's division coming up at a charging pace, made towards the centre and left of the position." Mac Culloch, almost instantly, received several bad sabre wounds, and, with five-and-twenty of his men, was taken prisoner.

Rogers, it may be believed, lost no time in following the salutary counsel he had received with as clever a pair of heels as he could muster. The enemy's artillery had by this time opened, and, as the devil would have it, the cannon-balls were travelling the same road, and tearing up the ground on each side of him almost as regularly as if it had been a ploughing match. Poor Rogers was thus placed in a situation which fully justified him in thinking, as most young soldiers do, that every ball was aimed at himself. He was half distracted; it was certain death to stop where he was, neither flank offered him the smallest shelter, and he had not wind enough left in his bellows to clear the tenth part of the space between him and comparative safety; but, where life is at stake, the imagination is fertile, and it immediately occurred to him that by dowsing the cocked hat he would make himself a less conspicuous object; clapping it, accordingly under his arm, he continued his frightful career, with the feelings of a maniac and the politeness of a courtier, for to every missile that passed he bowed as low as his racing attitude would permit, in ignorance that the danger had passed along with it, performing, to all appearance, a continued rotatory sort of evolution, as if the sails of a windmill had parted from the building, and continued their course across the plain, to the utter astonishment of all who saw him. At length, when exhausted nature could not have carried him twenty yards further, he found himself among some skirmishers of the 3d Caçadores, and within a few yards of a rocky ridge, rising out of the ground, the rear of which seemed to offer him the long-hoped-for opportunity of recovering his wind, and he sheltered himself accordingly.

This happened to be the first occasion in which the Caçadores had been under fire; they had the highest respect for the bravery of their British officers, and had willingly followed where their colonel had led; but having followed him into the field, they did not see why they should not follow another out of it, and when they saw a red coat take post behind a rock, they all immediately rushed to take advantage of the same cover. Poor Rogers had not, therefore, drawn his first breath when he found himself surrounded by these Portuguese warriors, nor had he drawn a second before their colonel (Sir George Elder) rode furiously at him with his drawn sword, exclaiming "who are you, you scoundrel, in the uniform of a British officer, setting an example of cowardice to my men? get out of that instantly, or I'll cut you down!"

Rogers's case was desperate—he had no breath left to explain that he had no pretensions to the honour of being an officer, for he would have been cut down in the act of attempting it: he was, therefore, once more forced to start for another heat with the round shot, and, like a hunted devil, got across the bridge, he knew not how; but he was helm up for England the same day, and the army never saw him more.

General Crawfurd's conduct in the affair alluded to, would argue that his usual soldier-like wits had gone a wool-gathering for the time being—he had, in fact, like a moth, been fluttering so long with impunity around a consuming power that he had at length lost all sense of the danger. But even then it is impossible to conceive upon what principle he took up the position he did—for, in the first place, it was in direct defiance of Lord Wellington's orders; and had the river behind him been flowing with milk and honey, or had the rugged bank on which he was posted been built of loaves and fishes, it would scarcely have justified him in running the risk he did to preserve the sweets; but as the one was flooded with muddy water, and the other only bearing a crop of common stones, and when we consider, too, that the simple passing of the river would have made a hundred of his troops equal to a thousand of the invaders, we must continue lost in wonder.

It is difficult to imagine, however, that he ever contemplated the possibility of stopping the French army but for the moment. Confiding, probably, in the superiority of his troops, he had calculated on successfully repelling their first attack, and that having thus taught them the respect that was due to him, he might then have made a triumphant retreat to the opposite bank, where, for a time, he could safely have offered them further defiance.

If such was his object, (and it is the only plausible one I can find,) he had altogether overlooked that for a man with one pair of arms to grapple with another who had ten, it must rest with the ten-pair man to say when the play is over, for although the one-pair man may disable an equal number in his front, there are still nine pair left to poke him in the sides and all round about; and thus the general found it; for having once exposed himself to such overwhelming numbers, there was no getting out of it but at a large sacrifice—and but for the experience, the confidence, and the devotion of the different individual battalion officers, seconded by the gallantry of the soldiers, the division had been utterly annihilated. Napier, as an eye-witness, states, (what I have often heard repeated by other officers who were there,) that "there was no room to array the line, no time for any thing but battle, every captain carried off his company as an independent body, and joining as he could with the ninety-fifth or fifty-second, the whole presented a mass of skirmishers acting in small parties, and under no regular command, yet each confident in the courage and discipline of those on his right and left, and all regulating their movements by a common discretion, and keeping together with surprising vigour."

The result of the action was a loss on the British portion of the division of two hundred and seventy-two, including twenty-eight officers, killed, wounded, and taken.

It is curious to observe by what singular interpositions of Providence the lives of individuals are spared. One of our officers happening to have a pocket-volume of Gil Blas, was in the middle of one of his interesting stories when the action commenced. Not choosing to throw it away, he thrust it into the breast of his jacket for want of a better place, and in the course of the day it received a musket-ball which had been meant for a more tender subject. The volume was afterwards, of course, treated as a tried friend.

Having, in one of the foregoing pages, introduced the name of Mac Culloch in a prominent part of the action, I must be forgiven for taking this opportunity of following him to the end of his highly honourable earthly career.

John Mac Culloch was from Scotland, (a native, I believe, of Kirkudbright;) he was young, handsome, athletic, and active; with the meekness of a lamb, he had the heart of a lion, and was the delight of every one. At the time I first became acquainted with him he had been several years in the regiment, and had shared in all the vicissitudes of the restless life they then led. I brought him under the notice of the reader in marching off to relieve the advanced picquet on the night prior to the action of the Coa.

For the information of those who are unacquainted with military matters, I may as well mention that the command of an outline picquet is never an enviable one—it is a situation at all times dangerous and open to disgrace, but seldom to honour—for come what may, in the event of an attack spiritedly made, the picquet is almost sure to go to the wall. From the manner in which the French approached on the occasion referred to, it may readily be imagined that my gallant friend had but little chance of escape—it was, therefore, only left to him to do his duty as an officer under the circumstances in which he was placed. He gave the alarm, and he gave his visitors as warm a reception as his fifty rifles could provide for them, while he gallantly endeavoured to fight his way back to his battalion, but the attempt was hopeless; the cavalry alone of the enemy ought to have been more than enough to sweep the whole of the division off the face of the earth—and Mac Culloch's small party had no chance; they were galloped into, and he, himself, after being lanced and sabred in many places, was obliged to surrender.

Mac Culloch refused to give his parole, in the hope of being able to effect his escape before he reached the French frontier; he was, therefore, marched along with the men a close prisoner as far as Valladolid, where fortune, which ever favours the brave, did not fail him. The escort had found it necessary to halt there for some days, and Mac Culloch having gained the goodwill of his conductor, was placed in a private house under proper security, as they thought; but in this said house there happened to be a young lady, and of what avail are walls of brass, bolts, bars, or iron doors, when a lady is concerned? She quickly put herself in communion with the handsome prisoner—made herself acquainted with his history, name, and country, and as quickly communicated it, as well as her plans for his escape, to a very worthy countryman of his, at that time a professor in one of the universities there. Need I say more than that before many hours had passed over his head, he found himself equipped in the costume of a Spanish peasant, the necessary quantity of dollars in his pocket, and a kiss on each cheek burning hot from the lips of his preserver, on the high road to rejoin his battalion, where he arrived in due course of time, to the great joy of every body—Lord Wellington himself was not the least delighted of the party, and kindly invited him to dine with him that day, in the costume in which he had arrived.

Mac Culloch continued to serve with us until Massena's retreat from Portugal, when, in a skirmish which took place on the evening of the 15th of March, 1811, I, myself, got a crack on the head which laid me under a tree, with my understanding considerably bothered for the night, and I was sorry to find, as my next neighbour, poor Mac Culloch, with an excruciatingly painful and bad wound in the shoulder joint, which deprived him of the use of one arm for life, and obliged him to return to England for the recovery of health.

In the meantime, by the regular course of promotion, he received his company, which transferred him to the 2d battalion, and, serving with it at the battle of Waterloo, he lost his sound arm by one of the last shots that was fired in that bloody field.

As soon as he had recovered from this last wound he rejoined us in Paris, and, presenting himself before the Duke of Wellington in his usual straightforward manly way, said, "Here I am, my Lord; I have no longer an arm left to wield for my country, but I still wish to be allowed to serve it as I best can!" The Duke duly appreciated the diamond before him, and as there were several captains in the regiment senior to Mac Culloch, his Grace, with due regard to their feelings, desired the commanding officer to ascertain whether they would not consider it a cause of complaint if Mac Culloch were recommended for a brevet majority, as it was out of his power to do it for every one, and, to the honour of all concerned, there was not a dissentient voice. He, therefore, succeeded to the brevet, and was afterwards promoted to a majority, I think, in a veteran battalion.

He was soon after on a visit in London, living at a hotel, when one afternoon he was taken suddenly ill; the feeling to him was an unusual one, and he immediately sent for a physician, and told him that he cared not for the consequences, but insisted on having his candid opinion on his case.

The medical man accordingly told him at once that his case was an extraordinary one—that he might within an hour or two recover from it, or within an hour or two he might be no more.

Mac Culloch, with his usual coolness, gave a few directions as to the future, and calmly awaited the result, which terminated fatally within the time predicted—and thus perished, in the prime of life, the gallant Mac Culloch, who was alike an honour to his country and his profession.