THE

IRISH NATION.

MODERN.

FIELD-MARSHAL VISCOUNT GOUGH.

BORN 1779-DIED 1869.

THE honours and distinctions of this gallant Irishman form a considerable list, and were all of his own earning. The Right. Hon. Sir Hugh Gough, first Viscount Gough, of Goojerat, in the Punjaub, and of the city of Limerick, and Baron Gough of Chin-kean-foo in China, and of Maharajpore and the Sutlej in the East Indies, in the peerage of the United Kingdom; and a Baronet, K.P., G.C.B., G.C.S.I., P.C., a Field-marshal in the army, Colonel of the Royal Horse Guards Blue, Colonel-in-chief of the 60th Rifles, and Honorary Colonel of Volunteers, was born, November 3, 1779, at Woodstown, the country seat of his father, who was Lieutenant-Colonel of the Limerick Militia. He was a doscendant of the Right Rev. Francis Gough, Bishop of Limerick in 1626. The fortune of the family was thus founded in the county by a bishop, in days when Irish bishops seldom failed to feather their nests; more than two hundred years later it was ennobled by a soldier. Hugh Gough was a fourth son; his mother was Letitia the daughter of Mr Thomas Bunbury of Lisnevagh and Moyle, in county Carlow; ard he was educated at home, under her pure and refining influence, by a private tutor. At the early age of thirteen he obtained a commission in his father's regiment of militia, from which he was transferred to the line, his commission as an ensign in the army dating from the 7th of August 1794, and that of lieutenant from a month or two later. His regiment was the 109th foot, and we find him serving as adjutant of that corps at an unusually early age. On the disbanding of this regiment, he passed into the 78th Highlanders, which he joined in 1795 at the Cape of Good Hope, in time to take part in the capture of that colony, and in that of the Dutch fleet in Saldanha Bay. The second battalion of the 78th Regiment having been reduced, we next find him serving in the 87th (the Royal Irish Fusiliers) in the West Indies, and present at the attack on Porto Rico, and the capture

IV.

A

Ir.

of Surinam, and taking part in the brigand war in St Lucia. He had already gained a high reputation for soldierlike ability, when, in 1809. he proceeded to the Peninsula to join the army under the Duke of Wellington. As major, he had the temporary command of his regiment then before Oporto, and at its head took a brilliant part in the operations by which Soult was dislodged. His next scene of action was Talavera, where he was severely wounded in the side by a shell while charging the enemy, and had his horse shot under him. On this occasion his conduct was so distinguished, that the Duke of Wellingtor recommended him for promotion to a lieutenant-colonelcy, urging also that his commission should be antedated from the date of his despatch; and it is remarked, in reference to this fact, that Hugh Gough was the first officer that ever received brevet rank for services performed in the field at the head of a regiment. At Barrosa, his regiment was greatly distinguished, and had a large share in turning the fortunes of the day. Among the spoils of the battle was a French Eagle, the first taken during the war. It belonged to the 8th Regiment of the enemy's light infantry, and bore a collar of gold round its neck, an honour conferred on that regiment because it had distinguished itself so much as, on a former occasion, to deserve the thanks of Bonaparte in person. It has ever since been borne as an honourable achievement on the colours of the Royal Irish. It is almost needless to add, that the conduct of the Royal Irish and their gallant leader at Barrosa, was mentioned in terms of the highest praise in the General's despatches. "The animating charges of the 87th," writes General Graham, 66 were most distinguished. No expression of mine could do justice to the conduct of the troops throughout. Nothing less than the unparalleled exertions of every officer, the invincible bravery of every soldier, and the most determined devotion to the honour of His Majesty's arms in all, could have achieved such brilliant success against such a formidable enemy so posted." We next find him taking part in the defence of Tarifa, where the portcullis tower and rampart, as the post of danger, were entrusted to him and his regiment, and where they greatly distinguished themselves in repulsing the final attack of the enemy and compelling him to raise the siege. Colonel Skervet on this occasion, in his despatch to Major-General Cook, was fully justified when he wrote, "that the conduct of Colonel Gough and the 87th exceeded all praise." Their conduct was scarcely less distinguished at Vittoria, where the 87th captured the baton of Marshal Jourdain, the only trophy of this kind taken during the war. Lord Wellington sent it to England to be laid at the feet of the Prince Regent, who in return sent him the baton of a field-marshal of England. At the battle of Nivelle, a hard-fought field, Gough was again severely wounded, and was rewarded for his gallantry with the Gold Cross, and shortly afterwards received the Order of St Charles from the King of Spain. For his services at Tarifa and elsewhere, his countrymen, proud of him as an Irishman, presented him with the freedom of the city of Dublin, and with a sword of considerable value.

Returning to England at the close of the war, he enjoyed a brief in

In

terval of repose; after which he was appointed to the cominand of the 22nd Foot, then stationed in the county Cork. This was in the interval between 1821 and 1824. At the same time he discharged the duties of a magistrate of the three adjoining counties, Cork, Limerick, and Tipperary, during a period of great excitement and disturbance. 1830, at the age of fifty-one, he attained the rank of field-officer; and seven years later he was called again into active service in India, where he was destined to win a name in history as one of England's victorious generals. Not long after he had proceeded to India, in order to take the command of the Mysore Division of the army, difficulties arose at Canton, which required the presence of an able and energetic military commander. It is not within our province to dwell on the causes of that war, or to enter into the history of the events which led to the attack on Canton, but we cannot do better than recapitulate Gough's services in China, in the eloquent words of Lord Derby (then Lord Stanley), spoken in his place in Parliament:-"I turn much more gladly to contemplate the triumphant position in which England and the British forces then stood. A force, consisting of 4500 effective men, under Sir Hugh Gough; a fleet of 73 sail, including one line-ofbattle ship; 16 vessels of war of different descriptions, and 10 war steamers, had forced their unassisted way, conquering as they went, up this mighty and unknown stream, the Yang-tze-kiang, and penetrated a distance of 170 miles, to the centre of the Chinese Empire. They had achieved the conquest of towns and fortresses, mounting in all above 2000 guns, which they had captured or destroyed, including Amoy, Chusan, Chapoo, Voosung, and Shanghai. They had subdued cities containing a population varying from 1,000,000 down to 60,000 or 70,000. They had continually routed armies four or five, and sometimes ten times their own number; and they had done all this at a great distance from their own resources, and in the heart of an enemy's dominions, half across the globe from their own native country. In the course of all these proceedings they had maintained not only constant and uninterrupted gallantry, but a soldierlike temperance and discipline, which reflected on them a glory of the purest characteron them and on their leaders, Sir H. Gough and Sir W. Parker; and now at length they had enabled Her Majesty's plenipotentiary, at the head of a powerful fleet, and a highly disciplined army, to dictate peace on the terms prescribed by his sovereign, and had obtained this peace on terms of perfect equality at the hands of the Emperor of China."

On the conclusion of the treaty of Nankin, in 1842, when the British troops were withdrawn, Sir Hugh Gough was created a baronet, and invested with the Grand Cross of the Bath. He also received the thanks of both Houses of Parliament, and of the East India Company, for his Chinese services: the Duke of Wellington proposing the vote in the Lords, and Lord Stanley in the Commons.

In August 1843, Sir Hugh Gough was appointed to the post of Commander-in-Chief of the Forces in India. Here, too, he well sustained the reputation he had won in the West Indies, the Peninsula, and China. He reached India in troublous times; but having gained the two important victories of Maharajpore and Puniar, Lord Ellen

borough was enabled to dictate a peace under the walls of Gwalior. His next important operations were against the Sikhs in the Punjab, where he was ably seconded by his gallant Peninsula comrade Henry Viscount Hardinge-who then held the Governor-Generalship. The Sikhs had long shown signs of intended mischief, and in 1845 they forced on a rupture with the Indian Government, and crossed the Sutlej in vast numbers. The Governor-General was a most distinguished soldier himself, but he remembered that he held the supreme civil command, and that the command of the troops belonged by right to his old companion-in-arms, Sir Hugh Gough, under whom, however, he volunteered to serve. Gough consented, and, ably supported by Lord Hardinge, gave battle to the Sikhs at Moodkee on the 18th of December, and on the 21st at Ferozeshah, where he carried by assault the intrenched camp of the enemy, with ammunition stores and seventy pieces of cannon. This he followed up by a third and even more decisive victory, that of Sobraon, on the Sutlej, which was speedily followed by the total rout of the Sikhs, and a peace dictated on our own terms before Lahore.

The Sikhs having laid down their arms, it was hoped for ever, Sir Hugh Gough was created a peer in April 1846, as Baron Gough, of Chin-kean-foo in China, and of Maharajpore and the Sutlej in the East Indies, in the peerage of the United Kingdom. But the Sikhs, though subdued for the time, were not conquered. In 1848 the ashes of the Sikh war burst into flame again, and Lord Gough was forced once more to take to the field. With the dash and energy of a younger man, he went out to meet them, and defeated them a fourth time at Ramnuggur, and again at the sanguinary and indecisive battle of Chillianwallah. His crowning victory was at Goojerat, where the Sikh power was finally and decisively broken, and the fugitives were pursued by Sir Walker Gilbert beyond the Indus, and being outmarched, as well as defeated, had to lay down their arms.

Upon Lord Gough's return to England, he was advanced to a viscountey, by the title of Viscount Gough of Goojerat in the Punjab, and of the city of Limerick; at the same time he again received the thanks of both Houses of Parliament, together with a pension of £2000 a-year for himself and his two next successors in the peerage. The East India Company followed the example of the Imperial Legislature, voting him their thanks, and settling on him a corresponding pension; and the city of London conferred on him its freedom.

From that date Lord Gough saw no active service, but the nation did not forget him. He was appointed Colonel-in-chief of the 60th Rifles in 1854; in the following year he succeeded Lord Raglan as Colonel of the Royal Horse Guards; and in the year 1856 he was sent to the Crimea to represent Her Majesty on the occasion of the investiture of Marshal Pellissier, and a large number of our own and of the French officers, with the insignia of the Bath. In 1857 he was installed a Knight of the Order of St Patrick, being the first knight who did not hold an Irish Peerage. In 1859 he was sworn a Privy Councillor; in 1861 he was nominated a Knight Grand Commander of the Star of India, and was appointed to the honorary Coloneley of the London Irish Volunteers; in November 1862, on the occasion of the Prince of