SIR DAVID BAIRD.
THIS is a laborious narrative, compiled from authentic and mostly private sources of information, of the life of a meritorious and distinguished British officer. The career of Sir DAVID BAIRD was one of the most arduous and at the same time honourable of all those of late years inscribed in the annals of military fame. Though circumstances, which he of course deemed unfortunate, always interposed between him and chief command in the field, he had many opportunities of acquiring proud distinction, which he by no means failed to seize. Among these may be mentioned his command of the storming division which took Seringapatam, and his being second in command at the battle of Corunna, where he lost his left arm. Si DAVID BAIRD was never selected, in spite of his natural wish to that effect, for the honour of a Military Peerage ; and he had, during his latter years, the mortification of seeing the whole of Lord 'WELLINGTON'S Staff promoted to the House of Lords, while he remained a simple baronet,—a title to which he had a sort of family claim. The services of Sir DAVID BAIRD were long, hazardous, severe, generally successful, and often important. He entered the Army a child; spent his early years in India; and was desperately wounded and taken pri- soner by RYDER ALI, when Colonel BAILLIE'S detachment was surrounded and cut to pieces, in the unfortunate affair of Pernambaukum. Captain BAIRD, scarcely alive, was cruelly ill- treated, and, with several of his brother officers, thrown into a wretched prison in Seringapatam; where he remained, undergoing the severest privations and inflictions, cut off from all communi- cation with his country, for three long years and a half. Some time after, as General of Brigade,he had the satisfaction of storm, ing his former prison, and of capturing and -destroying the cruel race of the man who had visited himself and his fellow-prisoners with so many hardships. General BAIRD afterwards was engaged. in superior commands, at the Cape, in Egypt, and ultimately in the Peninsula as second to Sir JOHN MOORE. The de pendence of great events upon small incidents was_ never shown more strik- ingly than in a circumstance which attended Sir DAVID BAIRD% step of Lieutenant-Colonel. The negligence of his Scotch agent caused the remittance for the purchase to be delayed some short time; which delay prevented the promotion of the then Major BAIRD from being gazetted for a similar short time. The consequence was, that Lord CAVAN, Lord LUDLOW, and Si.VJOHN MOORE, were gazetted before him. These Generals, whom he subsequently served with, repeatedly took precedence of him in assum- ing the chief command,—Lord; CAVAN in Egypt, and Sir Joint Mooaa in Spain ; and this too at critical moments, when. the future depended in a great measureon the character of the com- mander. It seems highly probable,. without derogating for one moment from the merit of Sir JOHN MOORE, that had Sir DAvto BAIRD- held the command, the disastrous retreat on Corunna would not have taken place. . A work of this kind does not present numerous points for ex- tract but it would scarcely be-doing justice either to the author or his subject, if we.were to omit. the description of one at least of Sir DAVID'S most chivalrous. exploits—the storming. of. Serbs- gapatam. It was ten minutes past one o'clock in the afternoon, whewGeneral Baird, having completed all his-arrangements for his heroic enterprise, stepped out of the trenches, and dratving.hisawmil,,e,t.elaimea to the men, ut:themos.t.pliamt
and animating manner, " Now, my brave fellows, follow ME, and prove your- selves worthy of the name of British soldiers." The effect was like magic. In an instant both columns rushed forward, and entered the bed of the river, and being of course immediately perceived by the • enemy, were in a few minutes assailed by a tremendous fire of musquetry and rockets.
The night before the assault Lieutenant Farquhar had crossed the river and placed sticks, indicating the best ford of the Cauvery. Colonels Sherbrook and St. John of course led the hankers of each column. General Baird had intended to lead the left column himself, but observing that the troops, being very severely galled by the enemy's fire, had swerved from the line of marks which had been made to direct their passage over the river, and had got into deep water. (where, although they found themselves protected by the high bank of an old tank, their progress was necessarily retarded), dashed forward himself by the shortest and most exposed passage.
By this intrepid movement he gained the opposite bank just at the moment the head of the first column reached it. He cheered the men by his personal example, and himself rushed onwards close to the forlorn hope, which, in spite of the.determined opposition of the enemy, made good its lodgment in the breach, in which, in six minutes from the first assault, the British colours were seen proudly floating in the breeze, by the troops, who were eagerly following their noble leaders. The gallantry and rapidity of this attack overcame all obstacles. In a few minutes more, the breach. was crowded with men, who, according to General Baird's orders, filed off to the right and left. As the troops pressed for- ward, the enemy retired, and in a very short space of time, another British flag was hoisted ou the north-west bastion.
When General Baird had reached the top of the breach, lie discovered, to his inexpressible surprise, a second ditch full of water within the outer wall. The almost insurmountable difficulty- of overcoming this unexpected impediment staggered him, and he exclaimed, " Good Godl how shall we get over this?" Fortunately, however, in leading the troops along the ramparts, lie discovered some scaffolding, which had been raised for the use of the workmen who had been repairing the wall, by availing himself of which, he was enabled to sur- mount that which at first appeared an unconquerable obstacle. Having imme- diately taken advantage of the opportunity which thus luckily presented itself, he crossed the inner ditch, and proceeded by the ramparts to the other side of the fort, where the two columns were to meet, and enter the body of the town. The attack was so sudden and even unexpected, being made in the broad noon of tiny, and at the general hour of dinner, that the assailants met with no very considerable resistance. The left column, however, was more vigorously op- posed ; they proceeded along the north rampart, which they found traversed and well defendA It was there Tippoo placed HIMSELF—he was the last man to quit the traverses, as they were successively taken possession of by the European troops, and was seen firing upon his enemies with his own hand, his attendants loading and handing him the fireloeks ; bein5, wounded, however, he endea- voured to return with his people through the sallyport into the fort. It is necessary to observe that part of the 12th Regiment, not in strict obe- dience to orders, instead of proceeding with the rest of the left column along the ramparts, pressed forward into the body of the town, and kept along the inside of the rampart, and found themselves opposite the sallyport, through-which the Sultaun proposed returning. They instantly halted, and commenced firing from the inside, while the rest of the column were firino.b from the outside, so that Tippet, was literally placed between both fires ; and it is to this accidental variation Irani the orders given to the 12th, that his death may be attributed, for it was on this very spot, as we shall presently see, that he was found buried under the bodies of hundreds of his faithfully devoted subjects and defenders.
Meanwhile, General Baird, with the right column, having cleared the south rampart, halted at the cast cavalier to give the men breathing-time after the fatigue they had endured under a burning sun, before they entered the town to summon the palace ; and whi!e they were resting, Colonel Close came to Ge- neral Baird, and told him, that a native officer iirho accompanied him, assured him that Tippoo had caused the twelve grenadiers of the 33d Regiment, who had been taken prisoners on the night of the 5th of April in the Sultaunpettah Tope, to be murdered.
General Baird desired Colonel Close to lie extremely particular in his inquiries touching the truth of his report, which. the Mussulmaun persisted in repeating; and when General Baird marched towards the palace, he told Colonel Wallace, of the 74th, that if the mares story was true, the instant he laid hands on Tippoo, he would deliver him over to the grenadiers of the 33d Regiment, to be tried for the murder, in culil blood, of their comrades.
As the troops were now in possession of every part of the ramparts, and it ap- peared hopeless in the Sultaun to make further resistance, General Baird sent forward Major Allan to offer protection to all persons, Tippoo himself included for General Baird did not believe the story of the murder of the English sol- diers, knowing the mendacity of natives, who may be interested in doing mis- chief), provided they all surrendered themselves unconditionally ; and this proposition was made, with the alternative, that if it were not accepted, the palace would be instantly assaulted, and no quarter given.*
Upon arriving at the palace, Major Allan found Major Slice, with part of the b
33d drawn up opposite to the gate, in the balcony, over or near which, several of the Sultauu's family appeared, evidently in a state of great alarm and agita- tion. In a short time, however, Major Allan, together with Captain Scohey and Captain Hastings Frazer, were admitted into the palace by the killadar, and brought into the presence of two of the younger princes, whom the British officers endeavoured to reassure by promises of protection ; and for the purpose of calming all their personal apprehensions, Major Allan offered to remain with them himself.
Soon after this, General Baird arrived at the gates of the palace, when Major Allan communicated to him what had occurred with regard to the two princes, who both continued most solemnly to declare that they knew nothing of the Sultaun, their father, except that he was not in the palace ; but as far as they themselves were personally concerned, they were ready to surrender themselves and the palace itself on the promise of protection from the British. General Baird at this period utterly disbelieved the statement of these youths
-that the Sultaun was not in the palace; and, entering as he did, into the feelings
• which were quite natural in their state, hesitated to grant terms to the sons, in • hopes that they might be excited by the delay to give information of their father's :place of concealment ; threatening at the same time, if they refused, to search
the most private quarters of the palace. But as their repeated denials of any • knowledge of the Sultaun were persisted in with apparent innocence and simpli- * Although General Baird could not bring himself to credit this report, it eventually Famed to be true. Captain William Macleod, who conducted what in Indian phraseo- logy is called the intelligence department of government," subsequently made an official report upon the subject to General Barris. Eight of those who suffered death were men belonging to the 33d, who had lost their way on trio night of the Sultannpettah Tope affair, a filet ascertained by Colonel Wel- lesley, who sent some of the officers of the regiment, by whom the body of one of their men was identified, a Peon having undertaken to show where the European prisoners iron buried, • These unfortunate captives, it seems, were murdered at night, in parties of three at a time—the mode of killing them was by twisting their heads, while their bodies were held fast, and thus breaking their necks. It seems, therefore, not improbable that timeh•or the dzsperotioa of Tippoo, which has been diguilied into heroism, arose from the eounieusness of what lie himself deserved, should he fall into the bonds of his city, he resolved at all events to take ehaige of the princes, and convey 'them-- out of the fort before it became dark; and accordingly he gave them into the charge of Major Allan, who having received them with every mark of kindness, and given them every assurance of personal safety, delivered theta over to Lieu- tenant-Colonel Agnew and Captain Marriot, who conducto them, under a suitable escort, to General Harris, in camp.
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