barked for the siege of Havannah. In this arduous enterprise our hero had his full share of honourable toil. On the 10th of June he was detached from the camp into the woods between Coximar and Moro, with a body of light infantry and grenadiers, who invested the Moro castle; and on the 11th he carried the Spanish redoubt upon Moro hill. The peace which took place after the end of this campaign interrupted the career of this aspiring soldier, and he remained several years without any opportunity of exerting his military talents. He was not, however, altogether idle; when General Murray was recalled from Quebec, he was appointed lieutenant-governor of that province, and when it was determined that the general should not return, he was promoted to the government in his room; and he continued in this station for many years. In 1772 he was advanced to the rank of major-general in the army, and appointed colonel of the 47th regiment of foot. In addition to these favours conferred upon him by his sovereign, he had the happiness to receive the hand of Lady Mary Howard, sister to the earl of Effingham. When the contest between Great Britain and the American colonies began to wear a serious aspect, the ministry called on General Carleton for his advice; and it is supposed that it was upon his suggestions they brought forward the celebrated Quebec bill. During the agitation of this measure in the house of commons, the general was examined at the bar, and his evidence satisfying both sides of the house of the expediency of the measure, it tended of course to accelerate its adoption. After the passing of the Quebec bill he immediately repaired to his government, and had a difficult task to perform. He had few troops in the province, and one of the first attempts made by the Americans was, with a powerful army, to gain possession of it. They had surprised Ticonderoga and Crown Point. General Carleton formed a plan for the recovery of these posts; but for want of British troops, and the cordial co-operation of the Canadians, his design failed. The general had also the mortification to be defeated in the field, and it was not without great difficulty and address that he escaped in a whaleboat into the town of Quebec. Here his energy of mind became conspicuous; being almost destitute of regular troops, he trained the inhabitants to arms, and soon put the place in such a posture of defence as to defeat General Montgomery in his attempt to storm it, although that brave officer led the forlorn hope in person. In the first discharge of a well-directed fire from the British battery, that intrepid American fell, with a considerable number of his men. The assailants, thus deprived of their gallant leader, paused but did not retreat, and they sustained a galling fire for half an hour longer from cannon and musketry, before they finally withdrew from the attack. Quebec was thus preserved till the arrival of reinforcements from England. As soon as he had received these, he drove the enemy from his province, and prepared to take revenge for his previous disappointments. For this purpose he endeavoured to engage the Indians in the English interest; but, from the well-known humanity of his disposition, we have reason to conclude he never approved of the shocking enormities which they perpetrated when not under his personal observation. He advanced with a powerful army towards the lakes, to obtain the complete command of which it became necessary to equip some armed vessels which had been constructed in England; but this took up so much time that the season was far advanced before they were completed. When this was done, he immediately attacked the American flotilla on Lake Champlain, under the command of General Arnold, and totally defeated it; but the lateness of the season obliged him to abandon further operations, and to return into Canada for winter-quarters. It was expected that General Carleton would have been employed in the ensuing campaign, but it is believed he declined so hazardous a service with the small number of troops that were allowed. The fate of General Burgoyne, under that foreseen disadvantage, justified General Carleton's refusal. On Burgoyne's arrival to supersede him, General Carleton evinced no censurable jealousy; on the contrary, he exerted himself to the utmost to enable his successor to take the field to advantage. He then resigned his government to General Halde mand and returned to England, where his merit, in so ably and effectually defending Quebec, procured him a red ribbon. In 1781 he was appointed to succeed Sir Henry Clinton as commander-in-chief in America, and on his arrival at New York he begau and completed many excellent reforms. He broke up the band of American loyalists, whose conduct had given umbrage to the well-disposed. He checked the profuse and useless expenditure of money in several departments, and restrained the rapacity of commissaries; he had the credit also of having done every thing in his power to soften the rigours of war, and to conciliate the minds of the Americans. In this situation he continued until peace was established between the two countries, when, after an interview with General Washington, he evacuated New York and returned to England. During his residence in London, before his last appointment, he acted as one of the commissioners of public accounts. He retained the command of the forty-seventh regiment of foot until 1790, when he was promoted to that of the fifteenth dragoons. It having been resolved to put the British possessions in North America under the direction of a governor-general, Sir Guy Carleton, now created Lord Dorchester, was appointed to that powerful and important office, having under his authority all the northern settlements, except Newfoundland. In this situation and government he remained several years, still acquiring fresh reputation. After his return to England his lordship led a very retired life, chiefly residing in the country. He died in 1808, and was succeeded in his title and estate by his eldest son Thomas, a general in the army. James, Earl of Fife. BORN A. D. 1729.-died a. d. 1809. He was James, Earl of Fife, was born in the town of Banff in 1729. the second son of William, Earl of Fife, by his second wife, Jane, daughter of Sir James Grant of Grant, Bart. Having an elder brother, who was educated at Westminster, he was intended from his cradle for the profession of the law, and at a proper age repaired to the university of Edinburgh, for the two-fold purpose of completing his education, and studying the civil law. But the death of Lord Braco in England altered the views of his younger brother, so that he immediately returned home, and became what in England is termed a country-gentleman. During the life of his father Mr Duff-now become Lord Bracoconceived the outline of a noble plan for the improvement of his patrimonial fortune, which he filled up and completed after the lapse of more than half-a-century. His model and mentor, on this occasion, was the earl of Findlater,-a nobleman who possessed a great and enlightened mind, and whose name and deeds will be long remembered in that portion of Scotland, which at this day reaps so many advantages from his beneficent projects. In conformity to his judgment, which had been ripened by travel and experience, his lordship began to plant; and in the course of a few years, the sides and tops of hills nearly inaccessible and hitherto unproductive began to assume a new and a more advantageous aspect. The sterile soil now appeared verdant, and the uniform dull and barren extent of heath obtained a warmer and a more civilized tint, from the fir, the pine, the larch, the elm, the ash, and the oak, whose united masses for the first time cast a protecting shade along the dreary waste. His lordship's ambition, nearly at the same time, pointed at a seat in parliament. He accordingly became a candidate for the county of Moray, and sat for some years as its representative. In 1760 he mar ried Lady Dorothea Sinclair, sole heiress of Alexander, ninth earl of Caithness, with whom he obtained a very considerable fortune. In 1763 he succeeded his father, both in honours and estate. Soon after this he purchased Fife-house, at Whitehall, and having a taste for building, expended a very large sum in altering or rather rebuilding it. Indeed, no nobleman in Great Britain possessed, perhaps, so many seats. During the political ebullition that succeeded the French revolution, in this country, the earl of Fife, we believe, was an alarmist; and like many others of that description, in order to demonstrate his confidence in the existing government, accepted of an English peerage from it. Accordingly, in 1793, he was created Baron Fife, of the kingdom of Great Britain. This circumstance, however flattering it might prove in one point of view, was yet hostile to his political influence in another, as it introduced Sir William Grant, master of the rolls, to the county of Banff; and it was found impossible ever after to remove him al though many successive efforts were made for that purpose. At length, towards the conclusion of the late war, the earl of Fife openly declared his enmity to Mr Pitt, and the ministers of that day; and as he was known to be an old courtier, well-acquainted with the springs that actuate the conduct of public men, many were led to suppose that he began to anticipate their downfall. On the 2d of Febru ary, 1801, he rose in his place, in the house of peers, and spoke as follows: "It is but seldom I trouble your lordships, but I could not feel myself at ease, were I not to fulfil my duty, in laying my sentiments before you. I rather incline to wish, that the threatened motion for an inquiry into the conduct of ministers, were not now made; but if it should be brought forward, I will most decidedly vote for it. I have no desire either to give offence to his majesty's ministers, or to pay court to those who oppose thein. Nothing can be more improper at present, than to debate whether the war is just, or unjust; necessary, or unnecessary: but I most positively declare one thing, and that is, that no war was ever worse conducted. My lords, I have read the history of this country with attention; I have seen, and been intimate with, all the different parties, from the death of Mr Pelham to the present hour. In this horrid contest, our blood and treasure have been spent in the extravagant folly of secret expeditions; grievous and heavy taxes have been laid on the people, and wasted in expensive embassies, and subsidizing proud, treacherous, and useless foreign princes, who would have acted much better for themselves, had you saved your money, and taken no concern with them. I do not condole with you on your present unfortunate situation, in having no friends. I only wish you had been in that situation at the beginning of the contest. The noble lord who presides at the head of the admiralty, (Earl Spencer,) in his speech, has with much ability done justice to the navy: I most sincerely wish that our ill-spent money had been laid out on our fleets. All those, my lords, who ever heard me speak, or ever read a letter from me on the subject, will do me the justice to say, that my sentiments have all along been the same; and that this has hung upon my mind, from the day the first battalion of the guards marched from the parade for Holland. I lament the present scarcity; but great as our demerits are, it comes not from the Almighty, but from the effects of this ill-conducted war; which I am ready to prove, whenever this question is brought forward. What have we gained by our boasted conquests? If a proper regulation for commerce was made, I wish they were all sold, and the money arising laid out to pay the national debt, and to relieve the nation of those oppressive taxes which bear hard on rich and poor; on their income, their industry, and what is worse, their liberty; and until some of those are repealed, this nation cannot be called free!" From this moment, his lordship regularly sided with the minority, until a change of ministers took place. When Mr Addington came in, he supported him, and also voted with the Fox and Grenville administration. By this time, however, his eye-sight began to be affected, and being unable to attend the house of peers, on account of this, or other infirmities, with his usual assiduity, he gave his proxy to Lord Grenville. The earl of Fife died in London in the 80th year of his age. In point of person, he was tall, genteel, and had been handsome in the earlier part of his life. Although a great economist, he was yet fond of magnificence, which he indulged in respect to houses, servants, carriages, and horses. But it is as a planter that this nobleman bids fair to obtain the respect of the present age, and the gratitude of posterity. By a recurrence to the annual volumes of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce,'-from which he received two, if not three gold medals,-it will be seen, that his labours in this point of view have far surpassed those of any of his contemporaries. He was himself a frequent contributor to the work in question. A long life, chiefly directed to this great object, enabled him a little before his death to have completed the planting of about 14,000 acres in all, and so profitable did this become, even during his own time, that the thinuings alone sold in one year for £1000.1 General Melville. BORN A. D. 1723.—died a. D. 1809 From GENERAL MELVILLE was descended from the Melvilles of Carubee in Fife, a branch of the ancient and noble family of his name, of which the chief is the earl of Leven and Melville. His parents dying when he was very young, his guardians placed him at the grammar-school of Leven, where he soon distinguished himself by a quick and lively appre hension united to a singularly capacious and retentive memory. this seminary, his rapid progress enabled him to be early removed to he universities of Glasgow and Edinburgh, where he continued to apply to his studies with the happiest success. His fortune being but moderate, he, in compliance with the counsels of his friends, turned his views to the study of medicine: but his genius strongly prompting him to follow a military life, and the war then carrying on in Flanders presenting a favourable opportunity for gratifying his natural tendencies, young Melville could not resist the temptation. Without, therefore, the knowledge of his friends, he privately withdrew to London, where he was furnished with the necessary means of carrying his project into effect. He accordingly repaired to the Netherlands; and early in 1744 was appointed an ensign in the 25th regiment of foot, then forming a part of the allied army. Eusign Melville, at the battle of Lafeldt, conducted himself in such a way as to merit being selected by his colonel, the earl of Rothes, to deliver to the commander-in-chief the colours of a French regiment taken by the 25th, on which occasion he was promoted to a lieutenancy. In 1751 he became aid-de-camp to the earl of Panmure. In 1756 he was made major of the 38th regiment, then in Antigua, where it had been stationed for half-a-century. That island had often been made a receptacle for offenders; and its military force had long been composed of the most disorderly troops. But by the indefatigable zeal of the new major, and from the perfect conviction he was able to inspire into the men that he had their welfare at heart, he at length succeeded in rendering the 38th regiment one of the most orderly in the service: detachments from it accompanied him in the attack on Martinique, as also on the invasion of Guadaloupe, where Major Melville commanded the light infantry. In recompense for his services in Guadaloupe, Major Melville was directed by the commander of the forces, General Barrington, to succeed Lieutenant-colonel Debrisey, in the defence of Fort Royal, which he held until the reduction of the island, when, in addition to the government of that fort, he was appointed lieutenant-governor of Guadaloupe and its dependencies, with the lieutenant-colonelcy of the 63d regiment. Brigadier-general Crump, who was made governor of the new colony, dying in 1760, Lieutenant-colonel Melville succeeded to the government, with the command of the troops. In the beginning Abridged from 'Monthly Magazine.' |