I was moved even to tears, which I trust were not unmanly, at your
touching reference to the glorious death, last Sunday, of my dear,
lamented friend, Colonel Laurie, who would, I had hoped, in the course
of nature, have survived me for many a year. It may, perhaps, be of
interest to your readers to know that this gallant soldier, who--I can
speak with some knowledge--proved himself excellent in every relation
of life, and who, _felix opportunitate mortis_, died for us and for
our liberties at the head of a renowned Irish regiment--the Royal
Irish Rifles--had, though not himself an Irishman, connections and
associations with this country of which he was justly proud. His wife
is a great granddaughter of the Right Hon. John Foster (Lord Oriel),
the last Speaker of the Irish House of Commons. He himself was the
great-grandson of an illustrious Irishman, Dr. Inglis, the Bishop of
Nova Scotia, who was the first Anglican Colonial Bishop ever
consecrated--a Trinity College, Dublin, man, and the son of a rector
of Ardara, in Donegal. Dr. Inglis emigrated to America, and was, on
the eve of the War of the American Independence, Rector of Holy
Trinity Church, New York, then (and I believe now) the principal
Anglican Episcopal Church in that city. Dr. Inglis was a pronounced
loyalist. He was warned not to read the State prayers for the King and
the Parliament. He disregarded the warning. His reading of those
prayers was interrupted by forced coughs and sneezings and other
manifestations of disfavour. He was then the recipient of many
threatening letters. On the next Sunday his voice, when reading the
obnoxious prayers, was drowned by a clattering of arms. On the Sunday
following guns were actually levelled at him as he read the prayers
quite undismayed, having, like his great-grandson, the heart and
courage of a hero. Yielding to the entreaties of friends, he left New
York for Canada, and on his return, more than twenty years afterwards,
to New York, when Bishop of Nova Scotia, he disinterred a magnificent
silver coffee pot which he had buried on the eve of his hurried
departure, and found in the place he had left it. That coffee pot is a
precious heirloom in Colonel Laurie's family. There is a brass tablet
to the memory of Dr. Inglis in St. Patrick's Cathedral, erected there
by the enthusiasm of Chancellor H.V. White, Rector of St.
Bartholomew's, whose own ministry was for some years in the Colonies.
Colonel Laurie's father, General J.W. Laurie, C.B.[13], served with
great distinction in the Crimea, where he was twice wounded; in the
Indian Mutiny, and in the Transvaal. He was Honorary Colonel of the
Royal Munster Fusiliers, and, having sat for some years in the
Canadian House of Commons, was from 1895 till 1906 Unionist Member in
the Imperial Parliament for the Pembroke Burghs, and a prime
favourite with all sorts and conditions of men in the House of
Commons. Colonel Laurie's elder brother, Captain Haliburton Laurie,
who was one of the most deservedly loved men of his generation, fell
in the Boer War in 1901. If he had not been a great soldier, Colonel
Laurie would have been a great historian. His knowledge of history,
more especially of military history, was profound, and his memory was
singularly retentive. He had, moreover, a very sound judgment in the
marshalling of facts. He had written with a pen of light the history
of his regiment, which he loved, and which loved him, and on which in
life and in death he had shed additional lustre.
Yours, etc.,
J.G. SWIFT MACNEILL.
DUBLIN, _March 20th, 1915_.
(_From the_ "_Irish Telegraph_," _March 20th, 1915._)