The Cavaliers of Fortune; Or, British Heroes in Foreign WarsGrant, James
History
The Cavaliers of Fortune; Or, British Heroes in Foreign Wars
Grant, James
British -- Foreign countries; Great Britain -- History, Military
In 1780, Colonel O'Moore commanded the Royal Walloon Guards of Charles
III. In 1799, Field-Marshal Arthur O'Neil was Governor-General
of Yucatan under the same monarch, and commanded the flotilla of
thirty-one vessels which made an unsuccessful attack on the British
settlements in the Bay of Honduras. In the same year, Don Gonzalo
O'Farrel was the Spanish ambassador at the Court of Berlin, and in
1808 he was Minister of War for Spain. In 1797, O'Higgins was Viceroy
of Peru, under Charles IV., one of whose best generals was the famous
Alexander Count O'Reilly.
Don Pedro O'Daly was Governor of Rosas when it was besieged by Gouvion
St. Cyr in 1809; and General John O'Donoughue was chief of Cuesta's
staff, and one of the few able officers about the person of that
indolent and obstinate old hidalgo, whose incapacity nearly caused the
ruin of the Spanish affairs at the commencement of the Peninsula war.
He died Viceroy of Mexico in 1816.
O'Higgins was Viceroy of Peru under Ferdinand VI. and the third and
fourth Charles of Spain. He signalized himself with great bravery in
the wars with the Araucanos, a nation on the coast of Chili, who were
ultimately subdued by him and subjected to the Spanish rule. John
Campbell, a midshipman who escaped from the wreck of the _Wager_, one
of Commodore Anson's squadron which was lost on the large island of
Tierra del Fuego, and who arrived, after inconceivable sufferings, at
St. Jago de Chili, furnished O'Higgins with various notes and outlines
of the coast, and other memoranda concerning the natives, all of which
he had ingeniously written on the bark of trees. These observations,
which were afterwards printed in England, were of the greatest value to
O'Higgins, who was wont to affirm that by the knowledge they gave him
of the barbarians under his government, "he owed the foundation of his
good fortune to Campbell."
In 1765, he marched against the Araucanos with a battalion of Chilian
infantry, and fifteen hundred horse, named Maulinians. He was thrice
brought to the ground by having three horses killed under him; but the
Araucanos were routed, and the Spanish rule extended over all Peru, of
which he died viceroy in the beginning of the present century, after
fighting the battles of Rancagua and Talchuana, which secured the
independence of Chili.
Few names bear a more prominent place in Spanish history than those of
Blake, the Captain-General of the Coronilla, and O'Reilly, a soldier
of fortune, who saved the life of Charles III. during the revolt at
Madrid, and who re-formed and disciplined anew the once noble army of
Spain.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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