|
| About LEMA | Find | Projects | Documents | Research | Gallery |
|
London Magazine: ObituaryThe Late Major-General Macquarie "Amongst the great and the good who have lately been called from this world of care and anxiety, we regret to have to record the name of Lauchlan Macquarie, Esquire, of Jarvisfield, in the Island of Mull, a Major-general in the army, and late Governor and Commander in Chief of His Majesty's colony of New South Wales and its dependencies. Few have died more regretted by a large circle of friends and acquaintances, and none more beloved or respected. Gen. Macquarie was born in the island of Mull on the 31st of December, 1762, - was lineally descended from the ancient family of Macquarie, of Macquarie, and nearly allied to the chief of that warlike and loyal clan. His mother was the sister of the late Murdoch Maclaine, of Lochbuy, than whose a more ancient or distinguished family does not exist in the Highlands. At the early age of fifteen (9th April, 1777) he was appointed an ensign in the late 84th, or Royal Highland Emigrant regiment, raised in America by his relation, Sir Allan Maclean, and young as he was, he joined the corps immediately on his appointment, and served with it in Nova Scotia, under the command of Generals Lord Clarina, Francis Maclean, and John Campbell, till 1781, when he got his lieutenancy in the late 71st regiment. This regiment he joined in South Carolina, where he served under the orders of the late General, the Hon. Alexander Leslie, till 1782, when the 71st, with other regiments, being sent to Jamaica, he remained there till the conclusion of the American war. At the peace of 1783, the 71st regiment was ordered home from the West Indies, and finally disbanded at Perth in 1784. Lieutenant Macquarie remained on half-pay till December 1787, when he was appointed to the present 77th regiment, then raising, and of which, from his standing in the service, he became the senior lieutenant. He accompanied his regiment to India in the spring of 1788, and arrived at Bombay in the month of August of that year, where he was appointed Captain-Lieutenant in December; and for seventeen years he continued to serve in the Presidency of Bombay, and in different parts of Hindostan, under the respective commands of Marquis Cornwallis, Sir William Meadows, Sir Allured Clarke, Lord Harris, Sir Robert Abercromby, Lord Lake, James Balfour, James Stuart, and Oliver Nicholls. Having purchased his company in the 77th, he received the brevet rank of Major in May 1796, and the effective Majority of the 86th regiment in March 1801, with the brevet rank of Lieutenant-Colonel on the 9th of November of that year. In the year 1805 he got the Lieutenant-colonelcy of the 73d, then a Highland regiment. In 1810 the rank of Colonel in the army, and in 1813 he was made a Major-General. He was present at the first siege of Seringapatam in 1792, and at its capture in 1799. He was also distinguished at the capture of Carranoru [sic: Cannanore] in 1790, Cochin in 1795, and Columbo in the island of Ceylon in 1796. In 1801 he accompanied Sir David Baird and the Indian army to Egypt with the distinguished rank of Deputy Adjutant-General - was present at the capture of Alexandria, and final expulsion of the French army from Egypt. In 1803 he obtained leave of absence and came to England, where he was immediately appointed to the home staff, and served as Assistant Adjutant-General to Lord Harrington, who commanded the London district. In 1805 he returned once more to India, where he continued for two years, and then came home overland. He arrived in October 1807, and joined the 73d regiment, then quartered at Perth, in 1808. In 1809, when his regiment was ordered to New South Wales, Col. Macquarie stood so high in the estimation of his King and of the Ministers, that he received the appointment of Governor in Chief in and over that colony. He held this high office for a period of twelve years; and, whatever may be said by those who envy what they cannot imitate, and are at all times anxious to detract from the merits of their contemporaries, posterity will form a different estimate of his character, and be able to appreciate the soundness of those measures to which the colony owes its present posterity, and upon which will depend its future greatness. Indefatigable in business, and well qualified, from his intimate knowledge of mankind, to judge of the character of those with whom he came in contact: he conducted the affairs of his government with a prudence and steadiness which few, however gifted, will ever equal, and none, we venture to affirm, can ever surpass. One of the maxims which he appears to have had constantly in his view was, to raise to something like respectability in the scale of society those who had expiated their crimes and follies by a life of good conduct and regularity in that country to which they had been transported, and thus, by the countenance and support which the well-behaved were sure to meet with, he stimulated others top follow their good example; a conduct much more likely to prove beneficial, than if the repentant criminal had been left to his hapless fate, in a society where it required all the support of a Governor-in-chief to give him a status in that society, and maintain him in it. Yet this Christian-like conduct was one of the few errors that were imputed to General Macquarie in the discharge of his duty as governor of the colony. Having been superseded by Major-General Sir Thomas Brisbane, General Macquarie returned to England in 1822, and retired for a short time to his estate in the island of mull. While in India, he married a Miss Jarvis, sister of Lieutenant-Colonel Jarvis, now of Dover in Kent. But this lady did not live to accompany him to England, and left no issue; and in the beginning of 1809 [sic] he was married a second time to Miss Campbell, daughter of Donald Campbell, Esq. of Aird, and sister of the present Sir John Campbell of Archnamurchan, Baronet. By this lady, who survives him, he has left one son, Lauchlan, who was born in Australia, and is now about nine years of age. -- Having served upwards of forty-seven years, General Macquarie a few days before his death, was advised, under the new regulation, to sell his lieutenant-colonelcy. During the winter of 1822-23, he travelled on the continent for the benefit of Mrs. Macquarie's health; but in the autumn of last year he retired once more to his estate in Mull, where, as he states in a letter addressed to the writer of this short memoir, he intended to rusticate for a few years, until his son was prepared to enter Eton College. But alas! How vain are the determinations of man. -- In April last General Macquarie came up to town, with the view of getting his colonial accounts finally settled, and to ascertain the determination of Ministers in regard to the remuneration to which he had become entitled by his long and faithful services as Governor of New South Wales. His accounts, being regularly and correctly kept, were soon brought to a close; and his merit s fully allowed, that a pension for life, of a thousand a year, was granted him; and as he states in a note from Duke-street in the end of June last, his cares were now at an end. In four short days from the date of that note they were indeed at an end for ever. Dining at a friend's house about the beginning of June, he was unable to procure a hackney coach, and as the rain had nearly ceased, he ventured to walk home to his lodgings. He was immediately seized with a suppression of urine, which in the end baffled the skill of the most eminent of the profession to remove or alleviate, and on the 1st July he breathed his last. Mrs. Macquarie, impressed with some impending misfortune, and from information from a faithful black servant that had been many years the attendant of the General, fortunately left Mull to join her husband in London, and arrived a few days before his death, so that she had the consolation, though a melancholy one, of witnessing the last moments of him whose loss is irreparable, but who died as he had lived, a hero and a Christian. General Macquarie was ever more desirous of a good name than of riches; he returned to England in 1822, a much poorer man than he had left it in 1809. He did not live to enjoy his pension a single day, so that the regulated price of a Lieutenant-Colonelcy of Infantry was all that he received for a faithful service of nearly half a century. We have little doubt, however, that when his merits become fully known to his Majesty, and are fairly appreciated by his country, as one day they must be, that some permanent mark of Royal favour will be granted to his orphan son. And upon whom could a baronetcy be more worthily bestowed than upon the son and only descendant of such a man? General Macquarie has left one brother, a distinguished officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Macquarie, who retired from the service a few years ago on account of bad health, and is now resident upon his property in his native isle. The General's remains were sent down to Scotland, for interment, and have been deposited in the family vault of the Macquaries, at Iona." [sic] Aug. 9, 1824 A.H.
Source:
Notes: Born at Copewood, Dumfries, Scotland, on 17 March 1782, Halliday had originally intended to become a clergyman, but after completing his arts and divinity course at Edinburgh University he pursued a career in medicine. He was employed by Murdoch Maclaine, of Lochbuy, for three consecutive summers between 1801-1803, as a tutor to his children and to assist with the management and the care of his Lochbuy estate and tenants on Mull. Halliday served in the Peninsular War and at Waterloo and by 1824 had become a distinguished physician in London attending HRH the Duke of Clarence (1765-1837) (who became King William IV in 1830). He was knighted in 1821. He had maintained his contacts with Mull and the Western Highlands and was ideally placed to describe the Macquarie and Maclaine families, though he was somewhat mistaken in some of the details. Most notably, Lachlan Macquarie was not buried 'in the family vault of the Macquaries, at Iona' but, in fact, on Macquarie's estate at Jarvisfield, on Mull. Similarly, Macquarie was born on the isle of Ulva, not Mull, and it had been in 1761, not 1762. In 1825-1828 Halliday had contact with Elizabeth Macquarie and her 31-year old niece Catherine Maclaine when the two women shared a house in Putney, Surrey while Lachlan Jnr attended school nearby, and later in Middlesex. Another version of the text of this 'Obituary Notice' (with minor modifications) appeared in Sir Walter Scott's Edinburgh Annual Register, 1824 pp.293-295. It is unclear which version derived its content from the other, though the likelihood favours the London Magazine as the original source, given that Halliday was resident in London at this time. His initials 'A.H.' are omitted from the attribution in the Edinburgh Annual Register.
References: Return to 1824 |
Copyright © 2011 Macquarie University. All rights reserved.
