The Memoirs of Admiral Lord Beresford. Baron Charles William De la Poer Beresford Beresford
a singular resemblance to the career of his relative, Lord Charles Beresford.
Marshal Beresford, or, more precisely, General Viscount William Carr Beresford, was born in 1768 and died, full of years and honours, in 1854. Son of the first Marquess, he also, like the Admiral, bore the bar sinister on his escutcheon. As captain of the 69th Regiment, he was with Lord Hood at Toulon in 1793, and commanded the storming party at the tower of Martello. He was present at the captures of Bastia, Calvi, and San Fiorenzo. After service in India, Beresford's brigade led the march across the desert in the Egyptian campaign of 1801. Eighty-four years later, his relative, Captain Lord Charles Beresford, took his Naval Brigade across the desert with Sir Herbert Stewart's forlorn hope.
Beresford was present at the capture of Cape Colony under Baird in 1805. Then he went up to Buenos Ayres, and with 1200 men took that place from the Spanish. After three days' hard fighting, Beresford was driven out of Buenos Ayres by an overwhelming force. Then he went with Sir Arthur Wellesley to Portugal; where he commanded two brigades under Sir John Moore. In the terrible winter retreat to Corunna, Beresford's brigade, told off to assist the rescue, was constantly engaged with the French vanguard. At Corunna, Beresford fought on the English left, achieving the greatest distinction.
In 1809, at the request of the Portuguese Government, Beresford was appointed to reorganise the Portuguese Army. Gifted with that marvellous capacity for handling men and for organisation, which Irishmen of English descent sometimes combine with a reckless gallantry, Beresford speedily transformed an ill-found, insubordinate mob into an efficient, well-fed, fighting force. He knew how to establish obedience to discipline, together with the confidence that good conduct would be rewarded; or, in Lord Charles Beresford's phrase, he coupled "commendation with condemnation." The Portuguese Government made him marshal in the Portuguese Army while he was lieutenant-general in the British Army; nor did the annoyance discovered by British officers at the double rank, which gave Wellington trouble, perturb the Marshal in the least. His Portuguese fought well alongside the English at Busaco, an action which earned Beresford the K.C.B. and other decorations.
He won the battle of Albuera, defeating Soult, though not without heavy losses. The victory was said to be due to the action of one of his Staff, rather than to Beresford's tactics; a good deal of controversy was waged on the subject, in which the Marshal, after his retirement, took a vigorous part; but the fact remains that Albuera was won.
Beresford was present at the tremendous siege of Badajoz and at the battle of Salamanca, at which he was severely wounded. He speedily recovered, and fought at Vittoria in 1813, in the battles of the Pyrenees, and in the battles of Nivelle, Nive, and Arthez. He then returned to Portugal to command the Portuguese Army; so that he was not present at Waterloo. At the conclusion of the war he was created Baron. He left Portugal in 1822, and took his seat in the House of Lords, where he was a sturdy supporter of the policy of the Duke of Wellington. In 1828 he was appointed Master-General of Ordnance. In 1830 he retired.
Wellington wrote of the Marshal in 1812: "All that I can tell you is that the ablest man I have yet seen with the army, and that one having the largest views, is Beresford … he is the only person capable of conducting a large concern." And upon another occasion, Wellington affirmed that if he were removed by death or illness, he would recommend Beresford to succeed him, not because he was a great general, but because he alone could "feed an army."
General Lord Beresford married the Hon. Louisa Hope, his first cousin, daughter of the Most Rev. William Beresford, Archbishop of Tuam and Lord Decies, and widow of Thomas Hope, author of Anastatius. His stepson was A. T. Beresford-Hope, sometime member for Cambridge University.
In 1824 the Marshal purchased the ancestral estate of the Beresfords in Staffordshire. His portrait, which bears a singular resemblance to Lord Charles, hangs in Curraghmore. It depicts a burly, martial figure, gorgeous in full uniform, with a broad, jovial, open countenance, and a bold blue eye, head thrown back, and a vast spread of chest and shoulder. Endowed with extraordinary physical strength, he was a born fighter, a great administrator, a big, warm-hearted, quick-tempered, irrepressible Beresford.
The formal list of his titles is: Viscount and Baron in the peerage of England, Duke of Elvas in the peerage of Spain, Conde de Trancoso in the peerage of Portugal, K.C.B., etc., colonel-in-chief 60th Rifles, colonel 16th Regiment, general in the English Army, marshal in the Portuguese Army.
The generations pass: the House remains. The House of de la Poer Beresford derives, from among other sources innumerable, from the Counts of Brittany, in the sixth century; from Brian Boru, King of Ireland, in the eleventh; from the Beresfords, that "very old and eminent English family," Norman in origin; from the Delavals of Northumberland, whose forefathers fought in the Crusades. This is the virtue of ancient lineage: that from generation to generation, an honourable tradition of service, of peculiar obligation, gathers reinforcement. Every scion of the House is judged by the stern company of his forefathers; who, together with his dower of body and of mind and heritage of land or wealth, bequeath him warning or example. No traffic in titles can purchase that unique inheritance, nor can any forfeiture of material possessions diminish its essential value.
L.C.C.
THE MEMOIRS OF ADMIRAL
LORD CHARLES BERESFORD
CHAPTER I
I SEE THE FLEET
I saw the Navy for the first time in the year 1858, when I was twelve years old. The Channel Squadron came into the Downs; the admiral, who was a friend of my father, invited me to visit his flagship. The admiral put off from Deal in a six-oared galley, and I was taken into a second boat. Both crews began to pull with all their might. I remember being intensely excited, beating with my hand on the gunwale and urging the men to row faster. We were overhauling the admiral, when the boat in which I was slackened her pace.
"Row!" I shouted. "Why don't you go on rowing?"
"We can't pass the admiral, sir," said the coxswain. And that was my first lesson in naval etiquette.
As we drew near to the ships, there arose a great tumult of shouting, and I could see the men running to and fro and racing aloft, and presently they stood in rows along the yards, manning yards in honour of the arrival of the admiral.
The neatness and order of the stately ships, the taut rigging, the snowy sails, the ropes coiled down neatly on deck: these things left an abiding impression upon my youthful mind.
It was in the winter of the same year, 1858–9, that a certain young soldier, who had fought throughout the Indian Mutiny with great gallantry and conspicuous ability, came to his home in County Waterford on his first furlough. He was Lieutenant Roberts, V.C.; now Field-Marshal Earl Roberts of Kandahar.
"During the winter months," he writes, "I hunted with the Curraghmore hounds, and was out with them the day before Lord Waterford was killed. We had no run, and at the end of the day, when wishing us good-bye, he said 'I hope, gentlemen, we shall have better luck next time.' 'Next time' there was 'better luck' as regarded the hunting, but the worst of all possible luck for Lord Waterford's numerous friends; in returning home after a good run, and having killed two foxes, his horse stumbled over quite a small ditch, throwing his rider on his head; the spinal cord was snapped, and the fine sportsman breathed his last in a few moments." (Forty-one years in India. By Field-Marshal Lord Roberts of Kandahar. Bentley. 2 vols. London, 1897, p. 451, vol. 1.)
My father, the Rev. Lord John Beresford, succeeded to the marquisate. In the same year, 1859, I joined the Naval Service. I remember, some years afterwards, thinking with some degree of envy of my two younger brothers, each of whom had three hunters, while I was only the "blood-boat" (the jolly-boat bringing beef