SHIPP'S MILITARY MEMOIRS.*
LITERARY SPECTATOR.
BRAVE JOHN SHIPP ! Excellent Jorm SHIPP Had it been thy lot to have been born on the coast opposite to that on which thy poor mother left thee, thou hadst been by this time a M. le Marechal de Shipp, Due de Bhurtpore or d'Huttrass, or of some other scene of thy exploits : but while JUNOT and BERNADOTTE were dashing from honour to honour, at the same moment JOHN SHIPP, by excellence the brave, was struggling from drummer to fifer, from fifer to pri- vate, from private to corporal, to full corporal, to sergeant, to full sergeant, to sergeant-major, to ensign, and lastly, to the small dis- tinction of a lieutenancy ; and this not once only, but twice. Many men have risen from the ranks, but none surely ever before rose from the ranks to be lieutenant twice. Yet so it was with Mr. SHIPP, even in our aristocratic army. Necessity obliged him at one time to sell his hard-earned commission, and once again he inlisted a private soldier, and once more fought his way to a lieu- tenancy. Acknowledged on all hands one of the best officers of the service, covered with honourable wounds, and bearing the best of reputations as a man and a gentleman, he was discarded the army by a court-martial about a paltry partnership in race-horses with a Colonel BaowNE, of whom he permitted himself to speak and Write intemperately. We do not say that he was altogether sans tache in the dirty matter ; but few men are in matters of horse- flesh, and it grieves us to the heart to see such a fine fellow thrown out of his element on such a score. Surely his forlorn hopes, his activity, his intelligence, his execution upon the enemy, his know- ledge of his duty, his strict performance of it, his amiable temper, somewhat rough perhaps, the love the soldiers bore him, all these might have prevailed against some intemperance, perhaps irregu- larity, entirely independent of the regiment and its affiiirs.
All the world will read the life of JOHN SHIPP with pleasure. To us the perusal of it has been extremely delightful ; for we take a peculiar interest in the narrations of men unaccustomed to write, but respecting whose condition it is important to have in- formation. Such is the private soldier, such especially is the officer
risen from the ranks. Independent of this graver source of in- terest, is that derivable from a • most amusing narrative of stirring events, a vivid picture of military life on foreign service, and a crowd of anecdotes of both a humorous and affecting nature. The 116ro of his own story is doubtless JOHN SHIPP, but no one ever recounted deeds of bravery with more modesty ; nay, let us add, no one ever had a more proper sense of the value of his own services, neither absurdly depreciating them, nor ridiculously exag- gerating their merits. He judiciously tells the thing as it happened ; does not exalt himself at the expense of others ; allows that every brave officer in the army would have done the same, though he is far from denying that he who has actually done what he has done is worthy of praise, and of something more than praise. At this moment he is pining to return to service ; and it is very clear that one of his grand objects in' publication is to attract the notice of those who have the power of reinstating him in the only sphere of his former usefulness : but when did publication do this service ? Commanders-in-Chief seldom read print, and like not those who write for it. Let us hope better things in this case. Few things would please us more than to hear that he had succeeded. First, we would have him put on full pay, and then we would have him an evening at our mess. We like his hu- mour, and there is no man whom we have lately read that we • should prefer to spend a long winter's evening with. This is a pleasure which all may not wish for, and all certainly cannot enjoy : such persons will find the memoirs of his career an admirable substitute.
JOHN. SHIPP was a village orphan in Suffolk. A farmer's boy, he became mad for soldiership ; and very amusing is the nairpte with which he describes the first steps of his life. In time he in- listed, and his adventures begin: sad are his first experiments both by sea and land. At the Cape he falls in love with a Dutch girl, the fair Sabina, born and bred far in the interior of Southern Africa, and deserts ; he is condemned to be flogged ; a benevolent colonel saves him from an ignominy that would have ruined in em- bryo one of the best soldiers in the'army. India is, however, the chief scene of his adventures : there he receives all his grades of promotion ; there does he earn them by achievements which in a more fortunate position would have raised him to fame and power. In the first unfortunate and sanguinary attacks upon the famous fort of Bhurtpore, he thrice volunteered to lead the forlorn hope, and thrice received serious wounds, leading his brave little troop on to the breach. On one of these occasions he stumbled up to the walls with his forehead hanging over his eyes ; a ball which went in above one eye came out at the other, and brought down the flesh of that part of the cranium : should then any inquisitive person look out for the brave JOHN SHIPP, they must not be sur- prised to find the hero in spectacles,—an unheroic costume, but since that serious accident, he has never yet recovered his original strength of sight.
Actions similar to these having made JOHN SHIPP an ensign, and within three weeks a lieutenant, he determined to come home, to enjoy for a time the satisfaction of showing the inhabitants of his native town that the wild little orphan boy of the workhouse had done honour to his country, and acquired rank in her armies, * Memoirs of the Extraordinary Military Career of John Shipp, late a Lieutenant in his Majesty's 87th Regiment. Written by Himself. 3 vols. London, 1629. Hurst, Clnince, and ecb and the estimation of honourable men ; a sweet gratification no doubt to one who, like SHIPP, seems to have no pride but that true and correct pride of having done his duty. To many men similarly situated, the poor place which had witnessed his humble origin and hard lot in life would have been the least agreeable place of abode. JOHN SHIPP had not, however, all the virtues : the gaieties of England led him into expenses ; his finances were low, and he felt obliged to sell his commission in payment of his tilebts. This must have been a hard trial, but still surely harder or the late lieutenant to fall into the ranks once more. Not so : however SHIPP loved the army in all its grades, he was equal to the duties of each one ; he sympathized with his comrades in all ; bravery was his passe par tout ; good humour, ease of manner, and competent information, fitted him as well for the mess-room as the cantine. His next scenes of action lay still in India, against the Pindaries, and in what is called the Goorkum war. We have not simply his own word for his exploits in the course of these campaigns, but he has judiciously fortified his own testimony by the certificates of his commanding officers : they are most honourable and satisfactory. The 87th, with which he latterly served, is an Irish regiment of considerable reputation for fighting, and Mr. SHIPP was consequently thrown much into contact with these wild headlong fellows. We are glad to see his testimony in favour of the private virtues of the Irish soldiers ; but if we may hint a fault in a book which has so much pleased us, we must say that his Irish stories, speeches, and letters, are not only a little too much, but likewise too strong for our tastes. We hate anything that should give the incredulous a handle against the worthy lieutenant. Many people of a nice taste will also vehemently object to the florid style in which natural objects are often described. The sun always sets and rises with Mr. SHIPP in the language of HOMER ; and occasionally when reading some of his paragraphs in this style, it seemed that we had got hold of a mock epic chapter of Tom Jones. To this little error we have, however, no vehement objections to make—we, on the contrary, accept it as a proof of genuineness: the rude soldier is apt to overflow in sentiment—when he is melted, no one blubbers more heartily than a rough-handed hero—no one is grander in his phrase than a half-educated man when his imagi- nation is exalted ; and we mean no offence to Mr. SHIPP when we apply this epithet to him. He has handled his twenty-fourther, as he calls an old sword of the 24th Dragoons, in which he served too sedulously and too strenuously to wield the pen after the man- ner of a fastidious man of letters ; who weighs his phrase and picks and chooses his words with an eye to the great models of composition and the rules of rhetoricians. Mr. SHIPP has a talent also at his pen, but it is an unchastened one : we are amazed and amused by his facility of diction, and by a certain nonchalante hu- inour that he contrives to throw into his narration. Let us give a solitary example—an account of his combat with a Nepaulese &that,. In describing an affair on the hill of Muckwanpore, previ- ous to an attack upon the fort, thus.writes our brave friend SHIPP- The enemy maintained their ground, and fought manfully. I hate a runaway foe : you have no credit for beating them. Those we were now dealing with were no flinchers ; hut on the contrary, I never saw more steadiness or bravery exhibited by any set of men in my life. Run they would not; and of death they seemed to have no fear, though their com- rades were falling thick around them, for we were so near that every shot told. At last some of their men began to give way, and as we were ascending rapidly, their commander, or one of their principal officers, attempted to rally them. Having succeeded in this attempt for the mo- ment, the said officer had the impudence to attack and put his Majesty's liege subject John Shipp, ensign on full pay and in the full vigour of his life and manhood, in bodily fear, on the King's high hill of Muekwan- pore, on the afternoon of— I now forget the date, he so frightened me. He was a strong, powerful man, protected by two shields ; one tied round his waist, and hanging over his thighs as low as the knees ; and the other on the left arm, much longer than the one round his waist. From this gentleman there was no escape ; and fortunately for me, Iliad my old twenty-further with me, which I had two or three days before put into good shaving order. With this I was obliged to act on the de- fensive, till I could catch my formidable opponent off his guard. He cut, I guarded ; he thrust, I parried ; until he became aggravated, and set to work with that impetuosity and determination pretty generally under- stood by the phrase 'hammer and tongs ;' in the course of which he nearly cut my poor twenty-fout-ther in pieces. At last I found he was winded; but I could see nothing of the fellow but his black face keeping above one shield and his feet under the other: so I thought I would give him a cut five across his lower extremities ; but he would not stand still a moment : he cut as many capers as a French dancing-master, till I was quite out of patience with his folly. I did not like to quit my man, so I tried his other extremities ; but he would not stand still allI could do. At length I made a feint at his toes, to cut them; down went his shield from his face to save his legs, up went the edge of my sword smack under his chin ; in endeavouring to get away from which, he threw his head back, and down he fell. And I assure you, reader, I was not sorry for it, for he was a most unsociable neighbour. I don't know whether I had a right or not, but I took the liberty of taking his sword, gold crescent, turban, chain, and large shield ; and! should have been severely wounded if I had been deprived of this latter trophy."—Vol. 1.
Mr. SHIPP is a humane man in spite of his subject, which is wholesale butchery. We admire his sentiments, and love him for standing up as he does against flogging : his two chapters on this head are invaluable. We shall only add, that if we were the
- but pslw ! we are only the Editor of the SPEQTATOR, therefore why speak of imaginary actions in imaginary situctions ?
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