A History of the 17th Lancers (Duke of Cambridge's Own)Fortescue, J. W. (John William), Sir
History
A History of the 17th Lancers (Duke of Cambridge's Own)
Fortescue, J. W. (John William), Sir
Great Britain. Army. Lancers, 17th -- History
For the campaigns in the West Indies the original despatches in the
Record Office have afforded most material, supplemented by a certain
number of small pamphlets in the British Museum. The Maroon War is
treated with great fulness by Dallas in his _History of the Maroons_;
and there is matter also in Bridges’ _Annals of Jamaica_, and the works
of Bryan Edwards. The original despatches are, however, indispensable
to a right understanding of the war. Unfortunately the despatches that
relate to St. Domingo are not to be found at the Record Office, so that
I have been compelled to fall back on the few that are published in the
_London Gazette_. Nor could I find any documents relating to the return
of the Regiment from the West Indies, which has forced me unwillingly
to accept the bald statement in Cannon’s records.
The raid on Ostend and the expedition to La Plata have been related
mainly from the accounts in the original despatches, and from
the reports of the courts-martial on General Whitelocke and Sir
Home Popham. There is much interesting information as to South
America,--original memoranda by Miranda, Popham, Sir Arthur Wellesley
(the Duke of Wellington) and other documents--preserved among the
manuscripts at Dropmore.
The dearth of original documents both at the Record Office and the
India Office has seriously hampered me in tracing the history of the
Regiment during its first sojourn in India and through the Pindari War.
I have, however, to thank the officials of the Record Department of the
India Office for the ready courtesy with which they disinterred every
paper, in print or manuscript, which could be of service to me.
Respecting the Crimea and the Indian Mutiny I have received (setting
aside the standard histories) much help from former officers,
notably Sir Robert White, Sir William Gordon, and Sir Drury Lowe,
but especially from Sir Evelyn Wood, who kindly found time, amid all
the pressure of his official duties, to give me many interesting
particulars respecting the chase of Tantia Topee. Above all I have to
thank Colonel John Brown for information and assistance on a hundred
points. His long experience and his accurate memory, quickened but not
clouded by his intense attachment to his old regiment, have been of the
greatest value to me.
My thanks are also due to the officials of the Record Department of the
War Office, and to Mr. S. M. Milne of Calverley House, Leeds, for help
on divers minute but troublesome points, and to Captain Anstruther of
the Seventeenth Lancers for constant information and advice. Lastly,
and principally, let me express my deep obligations to Mr. Hubert
Hall for his unwearied courtesy and invaluable guidance through the
paper labyrinth of the Record Office, and to Mr. G. K. Fortescue, the
Superintendent of the Reading-Room at the British Museum, for help
rendered twice inestimable by the kindness wherewith it was bestowed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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