Adventure stories; Short stories, English -- Scottish authors; Soldiers -- Fiction
'On Thursday morning last, Lawrence Marr and John Moody, of Colonel
Barton's Tory Regiment, were apprehended on suspicion of being spies.
On the following day they were indulged with a candid hearing before
a board of officers, whereof the Hon. Major-General the Marquis de la
Fayette was president. It appears that their business was to steal
and carry off the Secret Journals of Congress to New York.... The
Board having reported to the Hon. Board of War, their opinion was
approved, and Marr and Moody were both sentenced to die, which
sentence was executed on Moody between the hours of eleven and
twelve; Marr is respited until the 23rd instant.... The enemy, who
at this period seem equal to no exploits superior to robbing mails
and stealing papers, may thank their beloved friend Benedict Arnold
for the untimely death of the young man, who was only in his
twenty-third year.'
Of the future career of the adventurous James Moody we unfortunately
know nothing.
[Illustration: Chapter 9 headpiece]
'OLD MINORCA;'
OR,
GENERAL MURRAY OF THE SCOTS FUSILIERS.
[Illustration: Chapter 9 tailpiece]
'OLD MINORCA;'
OR,
GENERAL MURRAY OF THE SCOTS FUSILIERS.
It is strange that the life of this old officer has found no place in
any biographical work; yet he was the successor of Wolfe at Quebec,
and as such completed the conquest of Canada. He defended Minorca,
and repelled with scorn De Crillon's offer of a million sterling to
betray that post; and who, when an old lieutenant-general, was
arraigned before a court-martial by the brilliant Sir William Draper,
whom he signally baffled.
James Murray was the fifth son of Alexander, fourth Lord Elibank, who
in 1698 married Elizabeth Stirling, daughter of a surgeon in
Edinburgh. Following the example of his elder brother Patrick, who
served as a colonel in the Carthagena Expedition under Lord Cathcart,
he betook him to a military life, and on the 5th January, 1750-51,
was lieutenant-colonel of the 15th Foot, then on the Irish
Establishment (Millans' Lists). During five years subsequently his
regiment was still serving in Ireland, and in 1757 he commanded in
Sir John Mordaunt's expedition to Rochefort. On this service ten
battalions of infantry sailed from the Isle of Wight on board
eighteen ships of the line, attended by frigates, fire-ships, and
bombketches, under Sir Edward Hawke and Admiral Knowles, on the 8th
September, 'attended,' says Smollett, 'with the prayers of every man
warmed with the love of his country and solicitous for her honour;'
but, like most of those buccaneering expeditions to the coast of
France which disgraced the reigns of the two first Georges, it proved
a failure.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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