made one more desperate effort. They rallied the Europeans, and,
under the fire of the whole of the immense artillery of the enemy,
gained a little eminence, and formed themselves into a fresh
square. In this form did this invincible band, though totally
without ammunition, the officers fighting with their swords and the
soldiers with their bayonets, resist and repulse the myriads of the
enemy in thirteen different attacks, until at length, incapable of
withstanding the successive torrents of fresh troops which were
continually pouring upon them, they were fairly borne down and
trampled on, many of them still continuing to fight under the legs
of the horses and elephants.
The loss of the British in the action at Perambaukum was of
course great; and it is a reasonable subject of surprise that
any escaped. Lieut.-Colonel Fletcher was amongst the slain.
Lieut.-Colonel Baillie, Captain Baird, after being severely
wounded in four places, together with Captain the Honorable John
Lindsay, Lieutenant Philip Melvill, and other officers, with two
hundred Europeans, were made prisoners. They were carried into the
presence of Hyder, who, with a true Asiatic barbarism, received
them with the most insolent triumph and ferocious pride. The
British officers, with a spirit worthy of their country, retorted
his pride by an indignant coolness and contempt. “Your son will
inform you,” said Lieut.-Colonel Baillie, appealing to Tippoo, who
was present, “that you owe the victory to our disaster rather than
to our defeat.” Hyder angrily ordered them from his presence, and
commanded them instantly to prison, where they remained for three
years and a half, enduring great hardships, Captain Baird being
chained by the leg to another prisoner.
In March 1784 Captain Baird was released, and in July joined his
regiment at Arcot. In 1786 the _Seventy-third_ was directed to be
numbered the SEVENTY-FIRST regiment. Captain Baird was promoted
to the rank of major in the SEVENTY-FIRST regiment on the 5th
of June 1787, and in October obtained leave of absence, when he
returned to Great Britain. He was advanced to the lieut.-colonelcy
of the regiment on the 8th of December 1790, and in 1791 proceeded
to India, and joined the army under General the Earl Cornwallis.
Lieut.-Colonel Baird commanded a brigade of sepoys, and was present
at the attack of a number of droogs or hill forts; also at the
siege of Seringapatam in 1791 and 1792; likewise at the storming
of Tippoo’s lines and camps on the island of Seringapatam. In
1793 the Lieut.-Colonel commanded a brigade of Europeans, and was
present at the siege of Pondicherry. On the 21st of August 1795,
he was promoted to the brevet rank of colonel, and in October
1797 embarked at Madras with the SEVENTY-FIRST for Europe, but on
arrival at the Cape of Good Hope, in January following, he was
appointed brigadier-general, and placed on that staff in command of
a brigade. He was promoted to the rank of major-general on the 18th
of June 1798, and was removed to the staff in India. Major-General
Baird sailed from the Cape of Good Hope for Madras in command of
two regiments of infantry and the drafts of the twenty-eighth
dragoons, and arrived at his destination in January 1799. On the
1st of February he joined the army forming at Vellore for the
attack of Seringapatam, and commanded a brigade of Europeans. On
the 4th of May Major-General Baird commanded the storming party
with success, and, in consequence, was presented by the army,
through Lieut.-General, afterwards Lord Harris, Commander-in-Chief,
with Tippoo Sultan’s state sword, and a dress sword from the
field officers serving under his immediate command. In 1800 he
was removed to the Bengal staff, and on the 9th of May of that
year was appointed colonel-commandant of the fifty-fourth, and
colonel of that regiment on the 8th of May 1801, in which year he
was appointed to command the forces which were sent from India
to Egypt, and arrived at Cosseir in June, afterwards crossed the
desert, and embarked on the Nile, arriving in the following month
at Grand Cairo. He joined the army under Lieut.-General Sir John
Hutchinson, afterwards the Earl of Donoughmore, a few days before
the surrender of Alexandria, which capitulated on the 2d of
September, and terminated the campaign in Egypt.
In 1802 Major-General Baird returned across the desert to India,
and was removed to the Madras staff in 1803, and commanded a large
division of the army forming against the Mahrattas. He marched into
the Mysore country, where the Commander-in-Chief, Lieut.-General
James Stuart, joined him, and afterwards arrived on the banks
of the river Jambudra, in command of the line. Major-General
Wellesley, the present Duke of Wellington, being appointed to
the command of the greater part of the army, Major-General Baird
proceeded into the Mahratta country, and subsequently obtained
permission to return to Great Britain. He sailed in March with his
staff from Madras, and was taken prisoner by a French privateer.
In October he was re-taken as the ship was entering Corunna. He
arrived in England on the 3d of November, having given his parole
that he should consider himself as a prisoner of war; but shortly
after Major-General Baird and staff were exchanged for the French
General Morgan and his staff.
Major-General Sir David Baird, who had received the honour of
knighthood, was promoted to the rank of lieut.-general on the 30th
of October 1805, and commanded an expedition against the Cape
of Good Hope, where he arrived on the 5th of January 1806, and
effected a landing on the following day. On the 8th, the Dutch
army was defeated; on the 10th, the castle and town of Cape Town
surrendered; and on the 18th, General Janssens surrendered the
colony. In 1807 Lieut.-General Sir David Baird returned to England,
and on the 19th of July of that year was removed from the colonelcy
of the fifty-fourth to that of the twenty-fourth regiment. His next
service was in the expedition to Copenhagen under Lieut.-General
Lord Cathcart, at the siege of which he commanded a division,
and was twice slightly wounded. In 1808 Lieut.-General Sir David
Baird was placed on the staff in Ireland, and commanded the camp
on the Curragh of Kildare. In September of that year he embarked
at the Cove of Cork, in the command of a division, consisting of
about five thousand infantry, for Falmouth, where he received
reinforcements, and sailed in command of about ten thousand men
for Corunna, where he arrived in the beginning of November, and
formed a junction with the army under Lieut.-General Sir John
Moore. Lieut.-General Sir David Baird commanded the first division
of that army, and in the battle of Corunna, on the 16th of January
1809, he lost his left arm. Sir David Baird received the thanks of
both Houses of Parliament for his services at Corunna; “an honor
of which,” he remarked in his reply to the House of Peers, “no one
can be more fully sensible than myself, having had the good fortune
to be deemed worthy of this eminent distinction on four several
occasions;” alluding to his name having been included in the votes
of thanks for the operations of the army in India in 1799, for
those of Egypt in 1801, and in the Danish expedition in 1807.
In testimony of the Royal approbation, Lieut.-General Sir David
Baird was created a baronet, by patent dated 13th April 1809, and
was promoted to the rank of general on the 4th of June 1814; on the
2d of January 1815 he was nominated a Knight Grand Cross of the
Order of the Bath, and was appointed governor of Kinsale on the
11th of March 1819, and of Fort George, North Britain, on the 4th
of December 1827. He was also a privy councillor for Ireland. His
decease occurred at his seat, Ferntower, in Perthshire, on the 18th
of August 1829.
_Memoir of the services of Major-General Sir Denis Pack, K.C.B. and
C.T.S., formerly Lieut.-Colonel of the_ SEVENTY-FIRST _regiment_.
This distinguished officer entered the army as a cornet in the
fourteenth light dragoons, his commission being dated 30th November
1791, and joined that regiment in Dublin in January 1792. He
served in Ireland, and was engaged in quelling some disturbances,
between that period and 1794, when he embarked at Cork for the
Continent, and landed with the forces under Lieut.-General the
Earl of Moira at Ostend. After his lordship’s march from thence
to form a junction with the army under His Royal Highness the
Duke of York, Cornet Pack offered his services and was employed
to carry an important despatch to Nieuport, in which attempt he
fortunately succeeded, and was thanked for it by Major-General
Richard Vyse. His commanding officer’s squadron of the fourteenth
light dragoons was destined, after the embarkation at Ostend, to
retreat to Nieuport, which it effected by the advance of a corps
from that place to its support. Nieuport being almost immediately
invested, farther retreat from thence became extremely hazardous
and difficult. Cornet Pack was in a boat with about two hundred
emigrants, and did not gain the sea without a sharp action and a
severe loss. It conveyed the last of those who escaped the horrors
which befell that ill-fated garrison. He joined the Duke of York’s
army near Antwerp, and was in the action at Boxtel, and some
partial affairs. He served that severe winter campaign, and in
1795 returned to England, and was promoted to a lieutenancy in the
fourteenth light dragoons on the 12th of March of that year.
Lieutenant Pack subsequently embarked at Southampton in command
of a detachment of eighty dragoons destined for Quiberon Bay.
After the failure of the emigrants there, he proceeded under the
orders of Major-General Welbore Ellis Doyle to the Isle de Dieu,
where he landed, and did duty for some months as field officer.
In 1796, Lieutenant Pack returned to England, and on the 27th
February of that year was promoted to the rank of captain in the
fifth dragoon guards, which regiment he accompanied to Ireland, and
was frequently engaged during the rebellion in that country, and
was noticed in a despatch dated 21st of June 1798, from General
the Marquis Cornwallis, K.G., on the occasion of Captain Pack’s
detachment defeating a party of rebels, on the 19th of that month,
between Rathangan and Prosperous.
When the French landed a force in that country, Captain Pack was
specially employed by General the Marquis Cornwallis, with a
detached squadron, and after the surrender of General Humbert he
was appointed to command the escort which was despatched in charge
of him and the other French generals to Dublin.
On the 25th of August 1798 Captain Pack was advanced to the rank of
major in the fourth royal Irish dragoon guards, and embarked with
his regiment in the expedition to Holland, but was countermanded,
and stationed in England and Scotland until 1800, when he was
promoted, on the 6th of December of that year, to the rank of
lieutenant-colonel in the SEVENTY-FIRST regiment, and on the 24th
of April 1801 joined that corps in Ireland, in which country he
served until August 1805, when he embarked at Cork with the first
battalion of the SEVENTY-FIRST regiment in the expedition to the
Cape of Good Hope under Major-General Sir David Baird, and was
engaged and severely wounded in effecting the landing at the Cape
on the 6th of January 1806, but continued in the field, and was,
on the 8th of January, in the action at Bleuberg. These operations
led to a treaty, which was signed on the 19th of the same month, by
which the Cape of Good Hope was surrendered to Great Britain.
In April 1806 Lieut.-Colonel Pack proceeded, with the first
battalion of the SEVENTY-FIRST, in the expedition to South America
under the command of Brigadier-General William Carr Beresford,
afterwards General Viscount Beresford, and was present in six
actions with the enemy in that country, and was wounded, and
detained a prisoner, contrary to the capitulation which restored
the town of Buenos Ayres to the Spaniards. Lieut.-Colonel Pack
subsequently effected his escape with Brigadier-General Beresford,
and joined the army at Monte Video, under Brigadier-General Sir
Samuel Auchmuty, who, at the request of Lieut.-Colonel Pack,
directed a board of naval and military officers to inquire into the
particulars of his escape, by whom it was unanimously approved,
and he was declared free to serve.[34] Lieut.-Colonel Pack was
then detached with a small force to Colonia, where he commanded
successfully in two actions; namely, in an attack on the enemy
on his post, and in one made on his, at St. Pedro, when, after
a forced night march, the troops under his orders, amounting to
1,013 rank and file, routed the enemy, on the 7th of June 1807, and
captured a standard, together with 105 prisoners, including one
lieut.-colonel and five other officers; all his artillery, baggage,
&c. were likewise taken.
Lieut.-Colonel Pack was shortly afterwards appointed by
Lieut.-General John Whitelocke to the command of all the light
companies in his army, and joined the force then in the River
Plate destined to act against Buenos Ayres. He was engaged in
two successful actions with the enemy prior to the unfortunate
attack on the town, in which he was three times wounded. Towards
the end of 1807 he returned to Europe, and early in 1808 had the
SEVENTY-FIRST completely re-equipped; and, proceeding with the
first battalion of the regiment from Cork to Portugal, on the 17th
of June following, in the expedition under Lieut.-General Sir
Arthur Wellesley, was present in the battles of Roleia and Vimiera,
on the 17th and 21st of August 1808, which rescued Portugal from
the French. The conduct of the battalion and of Lieut.-Colonel Pack
was noticed in the public despatches, and the troops received the
thanks of both Houses of Parliament.
Lieut.-Colonel Pack afterwards marched into Spain, under
Lieut.-General Sir John Moore, and was at the affair of Lugo on
the 5th of January 1809, and at the battle of Corunna on the 16th
of that month, after which he returned to England, and embarked
in July following for Holland, under Lieut.-General the Earl
of Chatham. On landing at Walcheren, Lieut.-Colonel Pack was
appointed to command a small corps of cavalry and light infantry;
was employed in the siege of Flushing, and particularly named by
Lieut.-General Sir Eyre Coote for the command of a detachment to
storm an advanced work on the right of the enemy’s line. These
orders were successfully executed, the detachment taking forty-nine
prisoners, and spiking the guns, though defended by five times
the number of men under Lieut.-Colonel Pack. After the surrender
of Flushing he was appointed commandant of Ter Veer, where he was
dangerously ill for a short period, but remained until the island
was evacuated, on which occasion, in conjunction with Commodore
Owen, he commanded the rear-guard of the army.
Soon after the return of the SEVENTY-FIRST to England, in December
1809, the battalion was prepared again for active service; but the
government did not consider the men had sufficiently recovered from
the effects of the Walcheren fever.
Lieut.-Colonel Pack, being extremely anxious to bear a part in the
momentous campaign about to commence in the Peninsula, obtained His
Majesty’s permission to proceed to Portugal, and offer his services
to Viscount Wellington and Marshal Beresford. Both generals having
decided that he could not be more usefully employed than with the
Portuguese troops, he accepted an infantry brigade in that service,
and took the command of it just before the siege of Ciudad Rodrigo
by Marshal Massena, previously to his invasion of Portugal.
On the 25th of July 1810 Lieut.-Colonel Pack was appointed
aide-de-camp to the king, with the rank of colonel in the
army. After the surrender of Ciudad Rodrigo, of Almeida, and
Marshal Massena’s passage of the Coa, Colonel Pack’s brigade (an
independent one) was directed to take a separate route with a
regiment of cavalry attached to it, and remained in presence of the
enemy’s army at St. Combadoa, retiring slowly before it, on his
advance to the position at Busaco. The conduct of the brigade was
noticed in that battle, which was fought on the 27th of September
1810. In the admirable retreat afterwards to the lines of Lisbon,
it formed, with the light division and cavalry, the rear-guard of
the allied army. The first battalion of the SEVENTY-FIRST having
at that period joined Viscount Wellington, Colonel Pack’s wish
was to have returned to the battalion, but by the desire of both
commanders-in-chief, he continued to serve in the Portuguese army.
In 1811 the brigade was in the advance guard in following the enemy
up to his position at Santarem; was at the out-posts there, and
again in the advance on the further retreat of the French from
Portugal. It was employed in the investment of Almeida, and in the
operations against Marshal Marmont, on his advance to the relief
of Ciudad Rodrigo in January 1812. At the siege of Ciudad Rodrigo
it bore a distinguished part. It marched to the siege of Badajos,
and was in active operations against the enemy on his advance to
the Tagus, and subsequent retreat from Portugal. It moved in the
advanced guard on the march of the allies to Salamanca and the
Douro. It suffered severely in the battle of Salamanca on the 22d
of July 1812.
The brigade was in the march to and capture of Madrid; in the march
to Burgos, and subsequent siege of that place. Previously to the
siege of Burgos, detachments under Colonel Pack’s command carried
by assault the horn-work of that castle, after a desperate and
gallant action, for which the special thanks of His Royal Highness
the Prince Regent, and the Commander-in-Chief, were given to the
troops, through the Marquis of Wellington. In the retreat from
Burgos, which commenced in October 1812, the brigade under Colonel
Pack formed the rear-guard, and from thence to the frontier of
Portugal was very frequently in presence of the enemy.
In the memorable advance of the Marquis of Wellington into Spain,
in May 1813, and the passage of the Ebro, the brigade was in the
advanced guard of the left column of the army under Lieut.-General
Sir Thomas Graham, afterwards Lord Lynedoch. It was in the battle
of Vittoria, fought on the 21st of June 1813, and again in the
advance of Lieut.-General Sir Thomas Graham’s corps, in the pursuit
of the French to the Bidassoa. Shortly afterwards, Major-General
Pack, to which rank he was advanced on the 4th of June 1813,
was appointed to the _Highland_ brigade in the sixth division;
the division at this time for a short period was also under his
command, and after a forced march he arrived in time to share in
the victory gained by the Marquis of Wellington over the French
under Marshal Soult near Pampeluna, on the 30th of July 1813, in
which action Major-General Pack was severely wounded in the head.
He commanded the Highland brigade in the passage of the Bidassoa,
and advance of the British into France; in the overthrow of the
enemy in his fortified lines before Bayonne; the advance to and
passage of the Nive; the repulse of the enemy’s attack on the
British position before St. Jean de Luz; and, though not actually
engaged, he was present at the signal defeat of the enemy’s
desperate attack on Lieut.-General Sir Rowland Hill’s corps on the
13th of December 1813. Major-General Pack was also in the passage
of the Bidassoa, the Gave D’Oleron, and the Pau; at the battle of
Orthes on the 27th of February 1814; in the passage of the Adour
at St. Seur, and at the battle of Toulouse on the 10th of April
following, in which his brigade had nearly two-thirds of the
officers and upwards of half the privates killed and wounded. Louis
XVIII. was shortly afterwards restored to the throne of France,
Napoleon retired to the island of Elba, and the Peninsular war
terminated.
In 1813 Major-General Pack had been appointed a Knight Commander
of the Portuguese Order of the Tower and Sword, and on the 2d of
January 1815 was nominated a Knight Commander of the Order of
the Bath. He received a cross and seven clasps for the following
actions, at all of which he commanded troops, and was personally
engaged: Roleia, Vimiera, Corunna, Busaco, siege of Ciudad Rodrigo,
Salamanca, Vittoria, Pyrenees, Nivelle, Nive, Orthes, and Toulouse.
Sir Denis Pack had received eight wounds, six of them rather severe
ones; had been frequently struck by shot, and had several horses
killed and wounded under him.
In March 1815 Europe was astounded by the return of Napoleon
to Paris. The allied powers, however, refused to recognize his
sovereignty, and determined on his dethronement. A large army
proceeded to Flanders under Field Marshal the Duke of Wellington,
and Major-General Sir Denis Pack was placed in command of a
brigade. The campaign was as brief as it was glorious. On the 16th
of June, Napoleon, after having made one of his rapid movements,
attacked the Anglo-Belgian troops at Quatre Bras, in which the
fifth division under Lieut.-General Sir Thomas Picton, of which
Major-General Sir Denis Pack’s brigade formed part, was engaged.
Then followed the movement on the 17th to Waterloo, where, on the
18th of June, was fought that memorable battle in which the sun
of Napoleon set for ever, and the result of which gave to Europe
a lengthened period of tranquillity. These arduous conflicts
afforded Major-General Sir Denis Pack several opportunities for
distinguishing himself, and adding to his former honors.
Sir Denis Pack had the honor to receive the thanks of both Houses
of Parliament on six different occasions; namely, for his conduct
in the battles of Roleia and Vimiera; for the siege of Ciudad
Rodrigo; and for the battles of Salamanca, Vittoria, Orthes, and
Waterloo.
On the 8th of January 1816 Major-General Sir Denis Pack was
appointed colonel of the York chasseurs, which corps was
subsequently disbanded. On the 12th of August 1819 he was appointed
lieut.-governor of Plymouth, and to the command of the troops in
the western district, and on the 9th of September 1822 he was
appointed colonel of the eighty-fourth regiment. The decease of
Major-General Sir Denis Pack occurred on the 24th of July 1823,
at which period he held the command of the troops in the western
district of Great Britain, and the lieut.-governorship of Plymouth.
The following letter to Brigadier-General Sir Samuel Auchmuty
contains a full and satisfactory explanation of the motives by
which Lieut.-Colonel Pack was actuated in effecting his escape, as
alluded to in the foregoing memoir.
“Monte Video, 27th February 1807.
“SIR,
“Anxious to be immediately employed in the service of my country,
I take the liberty of stating the circumstances which led me
to make my escape from the enemy, trusting my conduct on the
occasion will meet with your sanction, and that you will be
pleased to take my wishes into consideration.
“The following, I believe, will be found a correct statement of
the transaction.
“Immediately after the surrender of the fort of Buenos Ayres,
on the 12th of August last, I understood from Brigadier-General
Beresford that the conditions verbally agreed to between him
and Colonel Liniers were, that the British troops were to be
considered as prisoners of war, but to be immediately embarked
for England or the Cape and to be exchanged for those Spanish
prisoners made on the British possessing themselves of Buenos
Ayres. On the 13th, in the morning, Colonel Liniers despatched a
Spanish officer to Sir Home Popham, with a letter from General
Beresford, to send the British transports back for the purpose
of immediately carrying the treaty into execution, and a few
days afterwards I was present when Colonel Liniers unequivocally
affixed his name to the capitulation containing the above
condition.