a dispatch to the Treasury, dated Orville, 25th June, "the names of
some most valuable officers lost to His Majesty's service. Among them,
I cannot avoid to mention Colonel Cameron, of the 92nd Regiment, and
Colonel Sir H. Ellis of the 23rd, to whose conduct I have frequently
called your lordships' attention, and who at last fell, distinguishing
themselves at the head of the brave troops which they commanded.
Notwithstanding the glory of the occasion, it is impossible not to
lament such men, both on account of the public and as friends."
Such was the eulogium of Wellington!
When Cameron was lying dead in the hospital of Gemappe, there was
found in the pocket of his Highland regimentals a touching memento,
illustrative of his character, and more honourable even than the
trophies of battle which he bore on his breast; viz., a pocket-book,
containing the names of all the Highland soldiers who had come with
him from his father's lands and from Lochaber; marking those whom he
had promoted, and those who were dead; for he counted many of them as
his clansmen and kindred, and had ever looked after the interests and
welfare of them all as if they had been the children of his own hearth,
and he had carried this list with him in all his battles, for it was
dated at Alexandria, in Egypt, 24th September, 1801.
A captain of an English regiment was buried near him; and there in
that lonely place the graves lay undisturbed until the month of April,
1816. In that year the colonel's brother, Captain Peter Cameron, of the
Balcarris, came to Brussels, accompanied by Ewen M'Millan, who led him
to the well-remembered place, where the graves lay, near three trees at
a corner of the Allée Verte. The colonel's remains were exhumed, placed
within another coffin, and brought to Leith; from whence a king's ship
conveyed them to his native Lochaber, where a grand Highland funeral
was prepared.
From Fassifern the remains of the colonel were borne for five miles,
on the shoulders of his friends and clansmen, to the old kirkyard of
Kilmalie, where, in presence of 3000 Highlanders, his aged father, then
verging on his eightieth year, laid his head in the grave a second
time, while the pipes played a lament; and now he sleeps in his native
earth by the tomb of the MacLauchlans, the _Leine Chrios_ of Locheil.
Donald Cameron, his chief, was in attendance, with Barra, Barcaldine,
and Glencoe, and seventy gentlemen of the clans dined in honour of the
occasion, at the Inn of Maryburgh.
Old Highlanders yet tell how sadly and how solemnly on that day the
march of _Gille Chriosd_ rang in the great glen of Caledonia, and yet
remember the dirge composed on that occasion by _Ailean Dall_, or
"Blind Allan," the bard of the chieftain of Glengarry--perhaps the last
of the family bards in the Scottish Highlands.
In consideration of his son's brilliant services, the venerable Ewen
of Fassifern received a baronetcy, and in Kilmalie a monument has been
raised above the grave of the hero of Arriverette. Its epitaph is from
the pen of Sir Walter Scott, and is remarkable for the elegance of its
expression:--
"Sacred to the memory of Colonel John Cameron, eldest son of Ewen
Cameron of Fassifern, Bart., whose mortal remains, transported from the
field of glory where he died, rest here with those of his forefathers.
During twenty years of active military service, with a spirit which
knew no fear, and shunned no danger, he accompanied or led, in marches,
sieges, and battles, the 92nd Regiment of Scottish Highlanders, always
to honour and always to victory; and at length, in the 42nd year of his
age, upon the memorable 16th June, 1815, was slain in command of that
corps, while actively contributing to achieve the decisive victory of
Waterloo, which gave peace to Europe. Thus closing his military career
with the long and eventful struggle, in which his services had been so
often distinguished; he _died_, lamented by that unrivalled general,
to whose long train of success he had so often contributed; by his
country, from which he had repeatedly received marks of the highest
consideration, and by his sovereign, who graced his surviving family
with those marks of honour which could not follow, to this place, him
whom they were designed to commemorate. _Reader, call not his fate
untimely, who, thus honoured and lamented, closed a life of fame by a
death of glory!_"
Few of Camerons old comrades now survive. I know of only three officers
and four privates living of the regiment which, between the 27th
August, 1799, and the 18th June, 1815, had lost, in killed and wounded,
117 officers and 1634 men. After being discharged, Ewen M'Millan (who
could never learn one word of English) died, in 1840, at Callart, the
seat of Cameron's brother, and he now sleeps by his old master's side
at Kilmalie. He it is whose memory Scott has embalmed in his "_Dance of
Death_," and--
"Who for many a day
Had followed stout and stern,
Where through battles, rout, and reel,
Storm of shot and hedge of steel,
Led the grandson of Lochiel,
Valiant Fassifern!
Though steel and shot he leads no more,
Low laid 'mid friends' and foemen's gore
But long his native lake's wild shore,
And Suinart rough, and high Ardgower,
And Morven long and tell;
And proud Bennevis hear with awe,
How, upon Bloody Quatre Bras,
Brave Cameron heard the wild hurrah
Of conquest, as he fell!"
Riddled with wounds, Colonel Donald M'Donald of Inch, Knight of St.
Vladimir, died in 1830, and is interred at Edinburgh; Lieutenant
Winchester died there in 1846. Captain Campbell died, by leaping
over a window, with a pistol in each hand, to chastise a person who
had insulted him; some have died as emigrants among the wilds of the
far West; many more are lying near Uppark, in Jamaica, where the
close-ranked headstones show where 1300 of the Gordon Highlanders are
sleeping far from their native hills; and now Paymaster Gordon, and
Lieutenants Ewen Ross, John Grant, and Alexander Gordon alone survive
to wear the _war decoration_.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 3: As an example of the number of _officers_ belonging to
the clans, who served during the war and escaped its slaughter, we
may state that there were on full and half-pay commissions, in 1816,
22 Buchanans; 67 Camerons; 22 Drummonds; 26 Fergusons; 41 Forbeses;
49 Grahames; 90 Frazers; 96 Grants; 144 M'Leans and M'Kenzies; 248
Campbells; and other names in the same proportion.]
[Footnote 4: MS. Records, 92nd Highlanders.]
[Footnote 5: Lieutenant Hope, 92nd.]
[Footnote 6: "Record:" Lyon Court, Edinburgh.]
[Footnote 7: Note of his services furnished to author from Horse
Guards.]
SIR SAMUEL GREIG.
Sir Samuel Greig, Governor of Cronstadt, Admiral of all the Russias,
and commonly called _the Father of the Russian Navy_, was a Scotsman of
humble but respectable parentage, and was born at the ancient seaport
town of Inverkeithing, in Fifeshire, on the 30th of November, 1735.[8]
He was educated by the parochial schoolmaster, who lived long to boast
of his pupil, for the Domini would seem to have been still alive when
the old statistical account of Scotland was published in 1794.
When very young, Samuel Greig entered the British navy, and at an
early age obtained the rank of lieutenant. In 1759 he served with
the fleet of Admiral Sir Edward Hawke, C.B. (afterwards Lord Hawke),
when blockading the harbour of Brest, where a fine French fleet lay,
under the pennant of the Marquis de Conflans. At that time a double
invasion of Britain (one by the way of Scotland, the other on the coast
of England) was threatened; but Commodore Boys blocked up Dunkirk,
and Rodney bombarded Havre-de-Grace, while the French transports and
flat-bottomed boats lay inactive in Brest, with the fleet of M. de
Conflans; till a violent storm in autumn, having driven the ships of
Sir Edward Hawke into Torbay, the marquis put to sea with twenty-one
sail of the line and four frigates, and threw all England into
consternation.
With twenty sail of the line, Hawke left Torbay, and came up with the
French fleet between Belleisle and Cape Quiberon, close in on the
coast of France, and in the desperate conflict which ensued, "young
Greig," though a subaltern, is said to "have eminently distinguished
himself." The battle began at two o'clock, P.M., on the 20th of
November.
Sir Edward, in the _Royal George_, 110, lay alongside De Conflans in
the _Soleil Royale_, 80, which was soon driven on shore and burned.
He then lay alongside the _Thesée_, and sent her to the bottom by one
broadside. _La Superbe_ shared the same fate; the _Juste_ was sunk
off the mouth of the Loire; the _Hero_ was burned; and thus M. de
Conflans was totally defeated. Nothing saved the rest of his fleet from
irretrievable ruin but the shadow of a tempestuous night, in which
two British ships of the line were lost. Lieutenant Greig served with
the fleet in all its operations, during the long cruise off the coast
of Bretagne, and the blockade of the river Vilaine, to prevent seven
French ships which lay there from joining Conflans, whose battered
squadron had reached Rochefort; but so dangerous were the storms, and
so incessantly tempestuous the weather, that the fear of invasion
passed away. Sir Edward Hawke was at length recalled, and the thanks
of Parliament and a pension were awarded to him. In this war the
British destroyed, or took twenty-seven French ships of the line and
thirty-one frigates. Six of their vessels perished. Thus, in all they
lost sixty-four sail, while Britain, by every casualty, lost only seven
line-of-battle ships and five frigates.
The next scene of Greig's service was at the capture of several of the
West India Islands.
War having been declared against the Spaniards, an attack on their
settlements in the West Indies was arranged, and Martinico, St. Lucia,
St. Vincent, and Grenada were taken. Then Cuba was assailed. Greig
was with the fleet, consisting of nineteen sail of the line, eighteen
frigates, and 150 transports, which had 10,000 soldiers on board, and
sailed for Cuba under Admiral Sir George Pocoke, K.B., whose commodore
was the Hon. Augustus Keppel, raised to the peerage in 1782.
The energy and exertions of Lieutenant Greig, during that tremendous
cannonading which preceded the siege and capture of the Moro Castle,
elicited the praise of his commander; but no promotion followed, for
the time was unfavourable for either Scotsmen or Irishmen rising in the
British service. After incredible exertions, difficulties, danger, and
slaughter, Havannah was captured, with 180 miles of coast; the Puntal
Castle, the ships in the harbour, three millions sterling of booty, and
an immense quantity of arms, artillery, and stores were surrendered to
the British. Greig's share of this enormous prize-money was very small,
being somewhere about 80_l._
Lieutenant Greig served in many other engagements during that
successful war; and his bravery, activity, and skill as a seaman had
so frequently elicited particular attention, that after the treaty of
peace which was signed at Paris in February, 1763, under Lord Bute's
administration, when the Court of St. Petersburg requested that a few
British officers of distinguished ability might be sent to improve the
Russian fleet, Greig was one of the _five_ who were first selected,
and his rank as lieutenant in the navy of Russia was confirmed by the
Empress Catherine II., in 1764. The only stipulation he and the others
made was, that they were to have the power of returning to the British
service whenever they chose.
Russia, since the beginning of the seventeenth century, has ever been
an excellent field for Scottish talent and valour. Thus Greig, by
his superior skill in naval affairs, his intelligence and diligent
discharge of the duties entrusted to him, soon attracted the special
notice of the Imperial Government, and the Empress appointed him a
captain in her fleet. He drew many other Scotsmen around him, and,
with these, he was at incredible pains to teach the half-barbarous
and wholly unlettered Russians the science of seamanship and the art
of gunnery, in all of which they were very deficient, "and he rapidly
raised the Russian naval service to a degree of respectability and
importance which it never before had attained."
In 1769, when he was in his thirty-fourth year, a war broke out between
Russia and Turkey, consequent on the civil strife which religious
intolerance had kindled in Poland. The Czarina marched in her troops;
and while pretending that her sole object was to rescue one body of
Polish citizens from the tyranny of the other, she secretly sought to
enslave them all, and render their country a province of the Russian
empire.
The growing greatness of the latter had alarmed its old hereditary
enemy, the Grand Seignior, who required Catherine immediately to
withdraw her troops from the Polish republic. Evasions were given,
and conflicts began between the Russian and Turkish outposts, on the
borders of the Ottoman empire, until the sack of Balta, in Lesser
Tartary, and a general massacre of its inhabitants, by the soldiers of
the Czarina, procured the committal of her ambassador to the Castle of
the Seven Towers, in October, 1769; and hostilities, which were only
suspended by the rigour of the season, began early in the spring of the
ensuing year.
Captain Greig was appointed commodore of the fleet which was to sail
for the Mediterranean, under Alexis Count Orloff; and in that ample
arena of service he had an opportunity of displaying his zeal and
intrepidity in such a manner as led to his immediate promotion to the
rank of flag-officer.
A partial breaking up of the ice in the Baltic enabled some of the
fleet to sail; and so early as the 14th of January, 1770, one part of
the armament, under the Scottish admiral Elphinstone, consisting of
one 70-gun ship, two of sixty guns each, and five others, arrived at
Spithead, _en route_ for the Archipelago.
The other division, of twenty-two sail of the line, reached Port
Mahon, in Minorca, so early as the 4th of January; and by the 6th of
March appeared off Cephalonia, the largest of the Ionian Isles, and,
with a fair wind, bore away directly for the Morea. At Minorca they
left some vessels to wait for Elphinstone, who left Spithead on the
14th of April, passed Gibraltar on the 4th of May, and before the
end of July had twice defeated the Turkish fleet--on one occasion
encountering three times his force, and destroying eight ships; on the
second occasion, with nineteen ships, encountering Giafar Bey, with
twenty-three. Giafar's largest ships were destroyed, and his fleet
dispersed.
In the great battle of the 6th of July, Greig, Mackenzie, and other
officers in the Russian fleet, had an opportunity of eminently
rendering good and gallant service; and by their energy and skill
the world now saw a naval force, which, as Cormick says, had issued
from the foot of the Baltic, able "to shake the remotest parts of the
Mediterranean, to intercept the trade of the Levant, to excite and
support the insurrection of the Greek Christians, and to leave nothing
of the vast empire of their enemies free from alarm and confusion."
The united squadron of the Admirals Count Orloff, Elphinstone,
Spiritoff, and Commodore Greig, followed the Turkish fleet, which
consisted of fifteen sail of the line, twelve frigates, &c., into the
Channel of Scio, which divides the island from Anadoli, or the Lesser
Asia; there the Turks were at anchor in a most advantageous position,
at the foot of the Gulf of Liberno, where their rear and flanks were
protected by rocks.
Early in the morning of the 5th, Commodore Greig was sent to
reconnoitre the roads between Scio and the main; and in the afternoon
he signalled _the enemy in sight_, consisting of _thirty sail in all_.
Orloff, the admiral-general, held a council of war, at which Greig's
opinion was specially asked, and his advice followed.
On the 6th, at ten in the morning, Orloff signalled to form line, and
the Russian fleet approached the Turks. Orloff was in the centre, with
three _Birnates_; Commodore Greig led one division, and Elphinstone the
other--in all, ten sail of the line, and five frigates; and they each
bore down with ensigns flying, all their ports open, and decks cleared
for action. There were many French officers on board of the Turkish
fleet, which had been joined by about thirty lieutenants, who had
received the permission of King Louis to enter the Sultan's service. A
terrible scene of carnage ensued, and the whole conflict is admirably
detailed in a letter published in the _Scots' Magazine_ for that
year, by a Lieutenant Mackenzie, who served on board of her Imperial
Majesty's ship the _Switostoff_.
At eleven o'clock the battle began. Admiral Spiritoff ranged up
alongside of the Turkish admiral, who was in the _Sultana_, of ninety
brass guns, and thus they fought yard-arm and yard-arm together,
pouring in and receiving cannon-shot, chain-shot, hand-grenades and
musketry. Spiritoff's topmasts were shot away, his bulwarks battered
down, and blood ran from his scuppers into the sea. He led his sailors
in an attempt to board the _Sultana_, and tore the banner of the
Crescent from her stern; but the boarders were repulsed, and obliged
to sheer off, for the Turk took fire, and his burning mainmast fell
on board of Spiritoff's ship, which also became wrapped in flames;
and in ten minutes both ships blew up. "I leave you to judge," says
Mackenzie, "of the dreadful scene of seeing so many hundreds of poor
souls blown into the air, while the rest were hotly engaged." Spiritoff
and twenty-four officers saved themselves in the barge.
The remainder of the Turkish fleet, after being severely mauled by
Elphinstone and Greig (Orloff was little of a seaman), cut their
cables, and ran into the harbour of Chismeh, a small town in the Sanjak
of Siglah, at the bottom of a bay one mile broad, and two miles long.
Across the mouth of this bay the fleet, under Orloff, Elphinstone, and
the Commodore, lay for the whole night, firing round shot, and throwing
in bombs. The fire of Greig's ship was particularly destructive; but
on the Turks getting batteries established on the height between Scio
and the coast of Anadoli, he and the two admirals were obliged to haul
off. Two fireships were prepared an the 7th, under the direction of
Elphinstone and Greig; and a council of war was held by the principal
officers in the cabin of Count Orloff. It was there suggested by the
Commodore, and resolved upon, that at midnight four ships of the
line, two frigates, and the bomb-ketch, should enter the harbour,
and while attacking the enemy, send the fireships on their errand of
destruction; but volunteers were required to lead, and three officers,
all Scotsmen, at once stepped forward. These were, Commodore Greig,
Lieutenant Mackenzie, of the _Switostoff_, and Captain-Lieutenant
Drysdale (or Dugdale, for this officer is called alternately by both
names in many accounts of these wars), and they made every preparation
for the desperate duty before them. At half-past twelve at night the
signal was made to weigh anchor, and bear into the little bay; Drysdale
and Mackenzie had the fireships; Greig led the ships of the line and
the two frigates, which, at four hundred yards' distance, cannonaded
the Turks, while the bomb-ketch plied its mortars. Greig signalled
the fireships to bear down; Drysdale and Mackenzie answered it, and,
favoured by the wind, ran right into the teeth of the Turks, whose
centre ship was at that moment set on fire by a fortunate shot from the
Commodore.
Drysdale's crew unfortunately left his ship before the proper time.
Indeed, the Russians were so overcome with terror by the darkness of
the night, the boom of the Turkish shot, and by the fireships, of which
they were unable to comprehend the use, that it was only by dint of his
sword and pistols that Drysdale kept them to their duty; but when near
the enemy the helmsman abandoned the rudder, the whole crew sprang into
their boat, and abandoned the brave Scotsman on board of the fireship!
In this terrible situation his native courage never deserted him; he
lashed the helm, and (though a boat full of armed Turks was pulling
alongside) held the ship on her course till, with his own unaided
hands, he hooked the grapnel-irons to the anchor-cable of the nearest
ship, which proved to be a large caravella. He then fired the train
by discharging a pistol, and in doing so was severely scorched by the
explosion. At the moment the Turks boarded him on one side he sprang
into the sea from the other, and swam from the blazing ship. Many a
shot was fired after him, but he escaped, and was saved with difficulty
by the boats of Greig.
The fireships blew up with the most admirable effect, and the result
was, beyond Greig's utmost expectations, decisive and disastrous, for
in five hours the whole Turkish fleet was burned to the water-edge
and totally destroyed--all, save one ship, Giafar Bey's, of seventy
guns, four row-galleys, and some gilt barges of twenty-four oars. The
morning sun, as he shone upon the Isle of Scio and Anadolian shore, saw
a scene of unexampled devastation--every Turkish mast had vanished from
the bay, and pieces of charred and floating wreck alone remained! The
following were the ships destroyed by Greig:--
Capitan Alebi, 84 guns.
Bashaw, 90 guns.
Patrona Ayckrece, 80 guns.
Reala Mustapha, 96 guns.
Mulensi Achmet, 84 guns.
Emir Mustapha, 84 guns.
Achmet, 86 guns.
Hamisi, 60 guns.
Ali Randioto, 60 guns.
Melehin, 80 guns.
Rapislan Bashaw, 64 guns.
Zefirbe, 84 guns.
_La Barbarocine_, 64 guns, was towed out of the harbour by his boats.
Two other large ships (names unknown) were burned, with four frigates,
eight 40-gun ships, eight galleys, and several row-boats. He rescued
400 Christian slaves, hauled close in shore, bombarded the town, blew
up the castle, and reduced the whole place to a heap of rubbish before
nine o'clock in the morning, by which time more than 6000 Turks had
been shot, burned, or drowned.
For this brilliant service Greig was at once made a rear-admiral by
Count Orloff, while Lieutenants Drysdale and Mackenzie received the
rank of captain, all of which appointments the Empress was pleased
to confirm. Though the unfortunate Capitan Pacha, who commanded, was
severely wounded, the Sultan ordered his head to be struck off, and
appointed Giafar Bey admiral in his place. As rear-admiral Greig's pay
amounted to 2160 roubles per annum. Immediately after this victory
Admiral Elphinstone sailed with his squadron for the Isle of Tenedos,
to block up the Dardanelles, where he captured forty vessels destined
for Constantinople, forced most of the Isles of the Archipelago to
declare for Russia, and levied contributions everywhere, taxing
Mitylene in 150,000 piastres. Greig accompanied Count Orloff to the
liege of the Castle of Lemnos, which proceeded slowly, the only troops
they had being revolted Greeks, who were afterwards cut to pieces by
Hassan Bey, and then the Russians bent all their efforts to force the
passage of the Dardanelles; but so strongly was it fortified by the
Chevalier Tott, and other Frenchmen, that every attempt proved futile.
In the winter of 1770 Greig's commission was further confirmed by a
letter from the Empress, and in his ship, the _Three Primates_, he
brought the nominal commander-in-chief, Count Orloff, to Leghorn on the
7th of December, as the fleet was leaving the Archipelago for want of
men, and the batteries of the Dardanelles were daily becoming stronger
under the skilful eye of Tott, to whom the grateful Sultan paid 100
scudi daily, as the saviour of his capital.