HOPE, (SIR) JOHN,
latterly earl of Hopetoun, a celebrated military commander, was son
to John, second earl of Hopetoun, by his second marriage with Jane,
daughter of Robert Oliphant of Rossie, in the county of Perth. He was
born at Hopetoun in the county of Linlithgow, on the 17th of August,
1766. After finishing his education at home, he travelled on the
continent, where he had the advantage of the superintendence of Dr
Gillies, author of the History of Greece, afterwards historiographer to
the king. Mr Hope entered the army as a volunteer in the fifteenth year
of his age, and on the 28th of May, 1784, received a cornetcy in the
10th regiment of light dragoons. We shall briefly note his gradual rise
as an officer until he reached that rank, in which he could appropriate
opportunities of distinguishing himself. On the 24th of December, 1785,
he was appointed to a lieutenancy in the 100th foot; on the 31st
October, 1789, to a company in the 17th dragoons; on the 25th of April,
1792, to a majority in the 2nd foot; and on the 26th of April, 1793, to
a lieutenant-colonelcy in the 25th foot. It was the period when the
claims of rank began to meet with less observance in the British army,
and severer duties called for the assistance of active and persevering
men; and these had before them a sure road to honour. So early as 1794,
lieutenant-colonel Hope was appointed to the arduous situation of
adjutant-general to Sir Ralph Abercromby when serving in the Leeward
islands; during the three ensuing years he was actively employed in the
campaigns in the West Indies, where he held the rank of
brigadier-general; during this service he is characterized in the
despatches of the commander-in-chief as one who "on all occasions most
willingly came forward and exerted himself in times of danger, to which
he was not called, from his situation as adjutant-general."
In the parliament of
1796, Mr Hope was returned as member for Linlithgowshire: as a
legislator he has been very little known, and he soon relinquished a
duty not probably according with his taste and talents. As a deputy
adjutant-general he attended the expedition to Holland, in August, 1799,
having, in the interval betwixt his services abroad, performed the duty
of a colonelcy in the north Lowland fencibles. In the sharp fighting at
the landing at the Helder, with which the proceedings of the secret
expedition to Holland commenced, colonel Hope had the misfortune to be
so severely wounded as to render his farther attendance on the
expedition impracticable. From the effects of his wound he recovered
during the ensuing October, when he was appointed adjutant-general to
the duke of York, lieutenant-colonel Alexander Hope, his brother by his
father’s third marriage, being appointed his successor as deputy
adjutant-general. In 1800, colonel Hope joined the expedition to Egypt
under Sir Ralph Abercromby, who had been his commanding officer at the
attack on the Helder. He still acted as adjutant-general, and on the
13th of May he was appointed brigadier-general in the Mediterranean.
Were we to follow this active officer’s footsteps through the progress
of the Egyptian war, we should merely repeat what the best pens in
Europe have been engaged in discussing for thirty years, and what
generally is known; suffice it to say, that he was engaged in the
actions of 8th and 13th March, 1801, and that he received a wound on the
hand at the battle of Alexandria. In June he was able to proceed with
the army to Cairo, where he has received credit as an able negotiator,
for the manner in which he settled the convention for the surrender of
that place with the French commander, general Belliard. On the 11th of
May, 1802, he was promoted to the rank of a major-general. On the 30th
of June, 1805, he was appointed deputy governor of Portsmouth: an office
he resigned the same year, on being nominated to a command with the
troops sent to the continent under lord Cathcart. On the 3rd of October,
1805, he was made colonel of the 2nd battalion of the 60th foot, and on
the 3rd of January, 1806, colonel of the 92nd foot. On the 25th of
April, 1808, he was made a lieutenant-general. [These dry details of
military advancement, which we would willingly spare our readers, were
they not necessary for the completeness of a biography, we have copied
from the Annual Biography and Obituary for 1824, a source from which we
derive all the dates in this memoir, judging it one likely to be
depended on.]
Lieutenant-general Hope
was among the most eminent and persevering partakers in that
exterminating war in the Peninsula, where, as in the conflicts of
ancient nations, every thing gained was the price of blood. On the 8th
of August he landed with the British forces in Portugal; -- during the
ensuing month he was appointed British commandant at Lisbon; and on the
French gradually evacuating the town, in terms of their convention, he
took possession of the castle of Belem on the 10th, and of the citadel
on the 12th. The restless spirit of the Portuguese, on the knowledge
that the French were to leave the country, caused their long-smothered
indignation to appear in insults, threats, and even attempts on the
lives of the general officers; to depart in safety was the object of the
French, and general Hope had the difficult task of preventing the
oppressed people from making dangerous displays of public feeling, a
duty he performed with moderation and energy, and which he was enabled
finally to complete.
Sir John Moore divided
his forces into two columns, one of which under his own command, marched
by Almeida and Ciudad Rodrigo, while the other proceeded to the Tagus
under the command of general Hope. While thus separated from his
celebrated commander, both experienced the full danger and doubt which
so amply characterized the disastrous campaign. The few Spanish troops
who had struck a blow for their country, fleeing towards the Tagus,
brought to general Hope the traces of the approach of the victorious
French. His column, consisting of three thousand infantry and nine
hundred cavalry, were in want and difficulty. The inhospitable country
afforded insufficient supplies of provision, they were destitute of
money, and of many necessary articles of military store. To enable his
troops in some measure to obtain supplies, he separated his whole column
into six divisions, each a day’s march distant from the others, and thus
passing through an uncultivated country destitute of roads, whose few
inhabitants could give no assistance and could not be trusted, and
harassed by the neighbourhood of a powerful enemy, he had to drag his
artillery and a large park of ammunition to join the commander-in-chief,
whose safety depended on his speedy approach. At Almaraz he endeavoured
to discover some path which might guide him through the hills to Ciudad
Rodrigo, but not finding one easily accessible, the jaded state of his
few remaining horses compelled him to relinquish the attempt to cross
these regions. On reaching Talavera, to the other evils with which he
had to contend was added the folly or perfidy of the Spanish
functionaries: the secretary at war recommended to him a method of
passing through Madrid, which on consideration he found would have been
the most likely of all methods to throw him into the hands of the French
army. Resolving to make a last effort to obtain assistance from the
nation for which the British troops were wasting their blood, he
proceeded in person to Madrid; but the uncontrolled confusion of the
Spanish government threw additional clouds on his prospects, and he
found that the safety of his men must depend on their own efforts.
Avoiding the path so heedlessly proposed, he passed Naval Carnero, and
reached Escurial, where he halted to bring up his rear, and to obtain
bullocks for dragging his artillery and ammunition. Having crossed the
mountains on the sixth day after leaving Madrid, his situation became
more melancholy, and he fell into deeper difficulties. He received the
intelligence of additional disasters among the Spaniards; and his scouts
traced the vicinity of parties of the enemy. "The general’s situation,"
says colonel Napier in his History of the Peninsular War, "was now truly
embarrassing. If he fell back to the Guadarama, the army at Salamanca
would be without ammunition or artillery. If he advanced, it must be by
a flank march of three days, with a heavy convoy, over a flat country,
and within a few hour’s march of a very superior cavalry. If he delayed
where he was, even for a few hours, the French on the side of Segovia
might get between him and the pass of Guadarama, and then, attacked in
front, flank, and rear, he would be reduced to the shameful necessity of
abandoning his convoy and guns, to save his men in the mountains of
Avila. A man of less intrepidity and calmness would have been ruined;
but Hope, as enterprising as he was prudent, without any hesitation
ordered the cavalry to throw out parties cautiously towards the French,
and to maintain a confident front if the latter approached; then moving
the infantry and guns from Villacastin, and the convoy from Espinosa, by
cross roads to Avila, he continued his march day and night until they
reached Peneranda: the cavalry covering this movement closed gradually
to the left, and finally occupied Fontiveros on the 2nd of December."
[Vol. i. p. 437.] Not without additional dangers from the vicinity of
the enemy, to the number of ten thousand infantry, and two thousand
cavalry, with forty guns, he at length reached Salamanca, and joined the
commander-in-chief. He partook in the measures which the army thus
recruited endeavoured to pursue, as a last effort of active hostility,
passing with his division the Douro at Tordesillas, and directing his
march upon Villepando. In the memorable retreat which followed these
proceedings, he had a laborious and perilous duty to perform. He
commanded the left wing at the battle of Corunna;—of his share in an
event so frequently and minutely recorded it is scarcely necessary to
give a detailed account. After the death of the commander- in-chief, and
the wound which compelled Sir David Baird to retire from the field,
general Hope was left with the honour and responsibility of the supreme
command, and in the language of the despatches, to his "abilities and
exertions, in the direction of the ardent zeal and unconquerable valour
of his majesty’s troops, is to be attributed, under Providence, the
success of the day, which terminated in the complete and entire repulse
and defeat of the enemy."
It was the immediate
decision of Sir John Hope, not to follow up a victory over so powerful
an enemy, but taking advantage of the confusion of the French, to
proceed with the original design of embarking the troops, a measure
performed with true military alacrity and good order, not without the
strenuous exertions of the general, who, after the fatigues of the day,
personally searched till a late hour the purlieus of the town, to
prevent stragglers from falling into the hands of the enemy. General
Hope wrote to Sir David Baird a succinct and clear account of the
battle, in which his own name seldom occurs. As exhibiting the subdued
opinion he expressed of the advantage gained, and as what is very
probably a specimen of his style of composition, we quote the following
passage from this excellent document: "Circumstances forbid us to
indulge the hope, that the victory with which it has pleased Providence
to crown the efforts of the army, can be attended with any very
brilliant consequences to Great Britain. It is clouded by the loss of
one of her best soldiers. It has been achieved at the termination of a
long and harassing service. The superior numbers and advantageous
position of the enemy, not less than the actual situation of this army,
did not admit of any advantage being reaped from success. It must be,
however, to you, to the army, and to our country, the sweetest
reflection that the lustre of the British arms has been maintained,
amidst many disadvantageous circumstances. The army which had entered
Spain amidst the fairest prospects, had no sooner completed its
junction, than, owing to the multiplied disasters that dispersed the
native armies around us, it was left to its own resources. The advance
of the British corps from Douro afforded the best hope that the south of
Spain might be relieved, but this generous effort to save the
unfortunate people, also afforded the enemy the opportunity of directing
every effort of his numerous troops, and concentrating all his principal
resources, for the destruction of the only regular force in the north of
Spain."
The thanks of his country
crowded thickly on general Hope, after the arrival of the despatches in
England; a vote of thanks to him and to the officers under his command
was unanimously passed in the House of Lords, on the motion of the earl
of Liverpool; in the House of Commons, on that of lord Castlereagh. As a
reward for his services, his brother (the earl of Hopetoun)
was created a baron of the united kingdom, by the title of baron
Hopetoun of Hopetoun in the county of Linlithgow, and himself received
the order of the bath, in which he was installed two years afterwards,
along with twenty-two other knights. Soon after his return to Britain,
Sir John was appointed to superintend the military department of the
unsatisfactory expedition to the Scheldt. It was the intention of the
planners of the expedition, that by landing on the north side of South
Beveland, and taking possession of the island, Sir John might incommode
the French fleet while it remained near Flushing, and render its retreat
more difficult, while it might be subject to the attacks of the British
ships. Sir John’s division landed near Ter-Goes, took possession of the
important post of Baltz, and removed all impediments to the progress of
the British vessels in the West Scheldt. For nine days Sir John occupied
his post, waiting impatiently for the concerted arrival of the gunboats
under the command of Sir Home Popham, harassed by frequent attacks from
the enemy, in one of which they brought down about twenty-eight
gun-vessels, and kept up a cannonade for several hours, but were, after
much exertion on the part of the general, compelled to retreat. The
termination and effect of the expedition are well known, and need not be
here repeated. At the termination of the expedition Sir John Hope was
appointed commander-in-chief of the forces in Ireland, but he soon left
this unpleasing sphere of duty, to return in 1813, to the scene of his
former exertions in the Peninsula. At the battle of Nivelle he commanded
the left wing, and driving in the enemy’s out-posts in front of their
entrenchments on the Lower Nivelle, carried the redoubt above Orogue,
and established himself on the heights immediately opposite Sibour, in
readiness to take advantage of any movement made by the enemy’s right.
On the 10th of December, nearly the whole army of the enemy left their
entrenchments, and having drawn in the piquets, advanced upon Sir John
Hope’s posts on the high road from Bayonne to St Jean de Luz. At the
first onset, Sir John took 500 prisoners, and repulsed the enemy, while
he received in the course of the action a severe contusion on the head.
The same movement was repeated by the enemy, and they were in a similar
manner repulsed. The conduct of Sir John on this occasion has received
the approbation of military men, as being cool, judicious, and
soldierly; and he received the praises of the duke of Wellington in his
despatches.
In this campaign, which
began on the frontiers of Portugal, the enemy’s line of defence on the
Douro had been turned, and after defeat at Vittoria, Soult had been
repulsed in his efforts to relieve St Sebastian and Pamplona, and the
army of France had retreated behind the Pyrenees. After the fall of the
latter place, the army entered France, after many harassing operations,
in which the progress of the allies was stoutly impeded by the
indomitable Soult. In the middle of February, 1814, the passage of the
Adour was accomplished. While the main body of the army under the duke
of Wellington, prosecuted the campaign in other quarters, Sir John Hope
was left with a division to invest the citadel and town of Bayonne on
both banks of the river. Soon after these operations commenced, Sir John
received information from two deserters, that the garrison was under
arms, and prepared for a sortie before day-light next morning. By means
of a feint attack at the moment they were so expected, and by the silent
and stealthy movements of some of their men through the rough ground,
many of the sentinels were killed, and several lines of piquets broken.
The nature of the spot, with a hollow way, steep banks, and intercepting
walls, deprived those so attacked of the power of retreating, and the
whole vicinity was a series of scattered battles, fought hand to hand,
with deadly bitterness. The chief defence of the besiegers lay in the
fortified convent of St Bernard, and in some buildings in the village of
St Etienne; to the latter post Sir John Hope proceeded with his staff,
at the commencement of the attack. Through one of the inequalities of
the ground already mentioned, which formed a sort of hollow way, Sir
John expected to find the nearest path to the village. When almost too
late, he discovered that the banks had concealed from him the situation
of the enemy, whose line he was just approaching, and gave orders to
retreat; before, however, being extricated from the hollow way, the
enemy approached within twelve yards’ distance, and began firing: Sir
John Hope’s horse received three balls, and falling, entangled its
rider. While the staff attempted to extricate him, the close firing of
the enemy continued, and several British officers were wounded, among
whom was Sir John himself, and the French soldiers pouring in, made them
all prisoners. The French with difficulty extricated him from the fallen
horse, and while they were conveying him to the citadel, he was severely
wounded in the foot by a ball supposed to have come from the British
piquets. From the effects of this encounter he suffered for a
considerable period.
On the 3rd of May, Sir
John was created a British peer by the title of baron Niddry of Niddry,
county of Linlithgow. He declined being a partaker in the pecuniary
grant, which, on the 9th of June ensuing, was moved by the chancellor of
the exchequer, as a reward for the services of him and other
distinguished generals. On the death of his brother by his father’s
prior marriage, he succeeded to the family title of earl of Hopetoun,
and in August, 1819, he attained to the rank of general. He died at
Paris, on the 27th August, 1823, in the 58th year of his age. From the
Edinburgh Annual Register for 1823, we extract a character of this
excellent and able man, which, if it have a small degree too much of the
beau ideal in its composition, seems to be better fitted to the person
to whom it is applied, than it might be to many equally celebrated.
"As the friend and
companion of Moore," says this chronicle, "and as acting under
Wellington in the Pyrenean campaign, he had rendered himself
conspicuous. But it was when, by succession to the earldom, he became
the head of one of the most ancient houses in Scotland, and the
possessor of one of its most extensive properties, that his character
shone in its fullest lustre. He exhibited then a model, as perfect
seemingly as human nature could admit, of the manner in which this
eminent and useful station ought to be filled. An open and magnificent
hospitality, suited to his place and rank, without extravagance or idle
parade, a full and public tribute to the obligations of religion and
private morality, without ostentation or austerity; a warm interest in
the improvement and welfare of those extensive districts with which his
possessions brought him into contact—a kind and generous concern in the
welfare of the humblest of his dependents,—these qualities made
him beloved and respected in an extraordinary degree, and will cause him
to be long remembered." [The esteem and affection in which the earl was
held in the scenes of private life, and in his character as a landlord,
has, since his death, been testified in a remarkable manner by the
erection of no fewer than three monuments to his memory, on the tops of
as many hills – one in Fife, on the mount of Sir David Lindsay, another
in Linlithgowshire, near Hopetoun House, and the third in the
neighbourhood of Haddington. An equestrian statue of his lordship has
also been erected in St Andrew’s Square, Edinburgh, with an inscription
from the pen of Sir Walter Scott. A correct and masterly engraving of
Lord Hopetoun, representing him standing beside his horse, has been
published.] |