SIR CHARLES MACGREGOR.*
• The Life and Opinions of Major.General Sir Charles Metcalfe Macgregor, K.C.B., C.S.1, C.I E.. Quartermaster•General in India. Edited by Lady Mac- gregor. 2 vols. Edinburgh and London : William Blackwood and Sons.
LESS known to the general public than many of his elder con- temporaries, Charles Metcalfe Macgregor, who was born in 1840 and who died in 1887, has left a bright name in the annals of India; and the story of his short yet crowded life deserves to be widely read. Although only forty-seven years, old when he died at Cairo, he had seen thirty-one years of service ; and it may be truly said that the malady which killed. him was brought on by his incessant labours in the field, at. the desk, and during adventurous and useful travel. His burning zeal and unresting career—for he filled up his furloughs with toil—gradually wore out an iron constitu- tion; and he was a victim to an activity which knew no rest, and a superabounding energy which consumed itself. Excess of industry is a fault, but a fault on virtue's side ; yet had he been less anxious and less ardent in pursuit of fame, he might still have done as much and lived longer to do more. Yet for what he did, and the example, with all its. honourable defects, which he has left, he deserves to be remem- bered gratefully, since no country has too many of such sons, and England, with her immense responsibilities, needs all she can secure.
In many respects his character was distinctly " original" to a greater extent than that of most men of mark, who are frequently much alike. Born in Agra, educated at Glen- almond and Marlborough, he came of a warrior Highland clan, and never forgot that he was a Macgregor of Glengyle. From first to last, he took life with a grim sort of seriousness, as if he felt it a primary duty to render illustrious the name he bore. His school record speaks of the boy as " a reserved, silent fellow," physically powerful, but never a bully ; and one master writes,—" I doubt if any master got inside the im- penetrable armour of the irreconcilable Macgregor." At sixteen he got a commission and went to India, where the lad was plunged into the midst of the Mutiny. The same kind of observation pursues him. When he was attached to the 1st Bengal Fusiliers, Major Butler, V.C., says that he was not a genial companion ; that he was considered to be of a rather sulky disposition ; that he would sit silent at mess, and only brighten up and talk when there was a prospect of fighting. But they all had a profound respect for the boy's valour; he was really at home in battle, and did not know what fear was. At Ferozepore he persecuted the brigadier with vain requests that he might be sent to Delhi. The brigadier would not take the responsibility ; whereupon the impatient youth exclaims,—" Everything is responsibility ; nobody will take a. bit of it on himself." When the 10th Light Cavalry mutinied, he saved a lady's life by attacking a party of sowars, and keeping them in check with his guns until she reached a place of safety. He got to Delhi, yet not until it had been stormed, and great are his lamentations. Despite these boyish outbursts of mourning over lost chances of winning the Victoria Cross—his paramount ambition— there is often a singular maturity about his remarks. Thus, in one action with the mutineers—whose cowardice afflicts. him severely—the loss was one killed and four wounded. " It would always be the way," he writes to his father, " if com- manders would only give up thinking that because there has been a good butcher's bill, there has been a good fight. The plan is to give them plenty of artillery." A few months later, August, 1858, he writes :—" It seems to me that the great Generals of the parade-ground do not come out quite so strong as might have been expected from the way in which they lay down the law. I don't by any means despise or ignore the necessity of drill, but the tricks of the barrack-square don't make a General,"—rather petulant for a boy of eighteen, yet thoroughly sound. Witb his courage and love of battle, he was sensitive, humane, and kind-hearted. He saved many lives, rescuing women as a matter of course, and standing up effectually for men who were, or seemed to be, innocent of imputed crime. When in Cabul with Roberts, he said the indiscriminate burning of villages over the frontier, which he disapproved, exasperated and did not " funk " the Afghans. It reminded him of the treatment of the Clan Gregor !
Daring the Mutiny period, he fairly won his spurs as a fighter and leader of men, who would follow him anywhere and at anything ; and one is surprised that the coveted distinction of the Cross did not fall to his lot. From the Fusiliers he was transferred to Hodson's Horse, and his reputation may be inferred from Colonel Daly's remark that he had done good service, and was "always ready and willing to make himself useful." " If it were not for my temper," the lad writes, " I should get on with every one, but I cannot curb my temper as I would;" and again, " I can't be civil to fellows I dislike ;" showing plainly that the Macgregor was still " irreconcilable ;" yet at bottom he was most eager to oblige others, as well as to perform all kinds of duties. And, spite of his temper, he made friends. " I tell you," mid Daly, " when you first came I did not think much of you ; but now I do not know any one I would sooner have for an adjutant, and there is no one I would sooner have by me in a hard day's work than yourself, young fellow." No youthful soldier could wish for higher praise. At one moment, in a fit of spleen, he requested his father to take him into the Agra Bank, but subsided meekly when his foolish request was denied, happily for him, as he was a born soldier. The narrative shows that clearly enough, and it is fully confirmed by the opinion of those with whom he worked and by whose side he fought. The great defect of his character was an extreme, a feverish eagerness for promotion and renown. But this was qualified, and largely qualified, not only by a readiness but by a desire to work for both, and really fit himself in all respects for the high positions he was so anxious to fill. No young soldier ever worked harder to justify his aspirations, and few have had sounder conceptions of the principles of soldiering. He spared no pains to learn all things, and he did learn them, vindicating his ambition to be " foremost with his book as well as his sword." In that respect he is a brilliant example, and it should always be noted that he set the spirit before the letter, and never shirked responsibility,—a fine quality, yet not without its dangers, and requiring an un- common temper and judgment to render it tolerable. At the bottom of his character was a fanatical love of adven- ture which needed the restraint of authority. During the Afghan War he was ever yearning to lead an expedition to Herat,—nay, even to go thither alone, feeling confident that he could establish himself as a power. He wished to be sent to Balkh, to Kunduz, into the Hazara, hills, anywhere which gave a promise of being able to enter Herat and make it secure against external foes. When, at a later date, he had, as a traveller, penetrated through Persia almost to its gates, and was forbidden to enter, and especially when the Indian Govern- ment expressed its disapproval, he was mortally chagrined.
In short, he was always much too venturesome. He proposed
to make a dash on the Emperor Theodore at the head of a small column. As late as June, 1880, when he was forty years old, he wrote this entry respecting Afghanistan:— "If they would give me carte blanche, I would soon conquer the whole country for them. I would begin gradually by annexing Talalabad, and then get a lot of volunteers from India and Europe, and ask Government to give me two lakhs a month, and I would go on to conquer Turkistan and Herat ; then get them to give me back Kandahar, develop the trade, and be a real King in fact."
A dream of that sort was always simmering in his brain, and it was probably this fantastic side of his character which created a distrust only stifled by remembering his sterling qualities as a regimental and staff officer. They were of the first order in point of merit, and were backed up by a proper sense of duty, discipline, and subordination ; but the dangerous element was ever present, not the less dangerous because the ardent soldier was all the time thoroughly sincere. After all his private grumbling, his advancement was not slow, for he was Quartermaster-General in his forty-first year. Thatle had earned it by toil and with his blood—he was wounded six times—none can gainsay ; but even he felt it to be a great distinction. In subordinate posts in that office he had shown himself a first-rate administrator, and it is interesting as well as illuminative to find, as Lady Macgregor testifies, that he "always considered his service in North Bengal during the famine of 1874 as the hardest and most creditable work in which he had ever engaged." He amplified
his department, and put the Intelligence branch upon a footing which it had never attained before. And no wonder. As early as the Mutiny period, when a lad, he saw and secured the advantages accruing from good information. Later, he compiled a Central Asian and Frontier Gazetteer for the use of the Government. At the top of the tree, he made the most of his position for the public good. That astounding work, styled The Defence of India, is a monument to his abilities ; but it should have been kept absolutely secret, and none can wonder that disapproval followed upon the indiscreet circulation of copies, although it was done upon the assurance, on honour, that the book should not be alluded to or quoted in any way. The pledge was not rigidly kept by some, and the Quartermaster-General had to apologise. " I endeavoured to tell the whole truth on the subject, and I submitted it for the honest consideration of all. I meant to have performed a public service, and now I find I have committed an official mistake for which I beg to express my deep regret." The explanation was accepted, but when his term of office expired, the Government would not make him at once a substantive Major-General, and his promotion to that rank did not appear in the Gazette until he was a corpse. We do not enter into his views of frontier policy ; they are those of a school with which this journal has ever been unable to sympathise in any way ; but that does not prevent us from saying that he who propounded them was upright and honest, a thorough soldier, an honourable gentleman, and a great public servant.
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