A history of Canada, 1763-1812Lucas, Charles Prestwood, Sir
History
A history of Canada, 1763-1812
Lucas, Charles Prestwood, Sir
Canada -- History -- 1763-1867
twice wounded, was present at Saratoga, and was chosen to carry
home dispatches.[220] Later in the war he served with distinction
under Lord Cornwallis in North Carolina. In 1794 he became a
major-general, and in 1795 he was sent to the Cape to take it over
from the Dutch. The Netherlands, recently over-run by a French army
under Pichegru, had been transformed into the Batavian republic,
and the Prince of Orange, then a refugee in England, sent orders by
the British fleet under Admiral Elphinstone, which carried Craig
and his troops, that the British force should be admitted as having
come to protect the colony from the French. The Dutch governor,
however, was not prepared to hand over his charge to British
keeping. Craig accordingly landed his troops at Simonstown, and
successfully attacked the Dutch at Muizenberg, but was not able to
occupy Capetown until the arrival of a force from India, which had
been ordered to co-operate, and which was under the command of a
senior officer, Sir Alured Clarke, the late Lieutenant-Governor of
Lower Canada. On Clarke’s arrival the Dutch capitulated, and Craig
became the first British Governor of the Cape, being succeeded in
1797 by a civilian, Lord Macartney. He served about five years in
India, being promoted to be Lieutenant-General in 1801; and, after
returning to England in 1802, was sent in 1805 to the Mediterranean
in charge of an abortive expedition to Naples, in which British and
Russian troops were to combine against the French. It ended in his
transferring his force to Sicily, where the Neapolitan court had
taken refuge. He then went home in ill health, and in 1807 went out
to Canada. His appointment was no doubt mainly due to his military
reputation, for war with the United States seemed close at hand;
but he was well qualified for it also by his wide experience of
the colonies, and by the fact that, like Prescott, he had already
had a short term of colonial administration. He left behind him at
the Cape a good record as governor, and but for the state of his
health seemed clearly the man for Canada.
[Sidenote: The beginning of his administration.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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