TO CORRESPONDENTS.

Orchard-Street, Portman-Square, 29th September, 1813.

Much valuable correspondence and communications from the Theatre of War on the Continent has been received, and will appear in our following Number.

The Article entitled "A Few Thoughts upon the Execution of our Public Monuments" will be given in our next.-A continuation of its Author's communications is particularly requested.

The additional highly-honourable title we have acquired to our work, is highly gratifying to our feelings, and will encourage us to a continuation of our exertions on every point that can promote the benefit of the Officers of the British Army, and the Military Profession at large.

We shall give Publicity in this Volume to various highly important State Papers, and other interesting Documents relating to all the foreign Courts of Europe; their Policy, Resources, and Cabinet Intrigues.-These Papers will be procured and drawn up expressly for the Military Panorama, and we therefore shall feel it an obligation due to ourselves, to punish with the greatest severity any plagiarisms, &c. therefrom.

In compliance with the wishes of several distinguished Officers, a List of the Subscribers and Supporters of this Work will be published with the Third Volume, The Friends to the Undertaking are therefore requested to communicate their Names and Addresses to the Editor, 33, Orchard-Street, Portman-Square.

Military Essays, Reviews of Military Works, Biographical Notes, Journals of Sieges, and every Military Operation, will at all times be particularly attended to; and the authors of such communications may rest assured that the Editor will preserve an inviolable secrecy as to their names, and when requested will confer with them personally on the subject of their communications.

not only a

As the Panorama is published in a manner that will always render useful and necessary, but also an elegant work for the confined library of the Military man, and to deserve a prominent place on the shelves of the scholar and the gentleman, it consequently requires very considerable time for printing and binding, and it is therefore requested that those correspondents who are desirous for an early publication of their favours, will transmit them at the commencement of each month, directed to the Editor, 33, Orchard-Street, Portman-Square,

Sieu! Genera!) Sir Ralph. Abercrombie, ħ B.

Engraved for the Military Panorama

Londen. Publish'd by Patrick Martin &C233 Orchard Str: Portman Sq

THE

ROYAL

Military Panorama,

OR

OFFICERS COMPANION FOR OCTOBER 1813.

MILITARY BIOGRAPHY.

The late Lieut.-Gen. Sir RALPH ABERCROMBIE, K. B.

HERE is, perhaps, no branch of science or literature, no de

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partment of the belles lettres, no labour of the annalist, so interesting to ourselves, so instructive and beneficial to posterity, as the delineation of the lives and transactions of distinguished persons. In transcribing the actions of men illustrious for their virtue, their courage, and their probity, the statesman is enlightened, the soldier animated, and the citizen improved; nor is there a species of writing where unbiassed candour, strict impartiality, and irrefragible truth, are so requisite. In the immortal pages of the amiable Plutarch our energies are awakened by examples of the most heroic valour, by the noblest instances of self controul, mag. nanimity, patriotism, and piety: yet, those elegant and philosophical writings are not unfrequently dimmed by the mists of prejudice and superstition, and the beauty and simplicity of truth defaced and violated, in order to embellish an incident, or give effect to a situation. It is the duty of a modern biographer to avoid the flowery paths of fiction, and tread only the narrow and unadorned way which leads to reality. In the memoirs of a conqueror of our days, the biographer is deprived of those adventitious ornaments which are even attractive to minds of the purest and soberest mould; confined to a mere recital of facts, in which thought and imagination must not wander, he cannot give "a local habitation and a name" to beings, to personages, and appearances without VOL. III.

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the pale of nature, and outrage her modesty by prodigies and portents. Numa had his Egeria, Marius his Prophetess, and Sertorius his Faun, but Abercrombie had only his sword and his honour.

The lamented subject of this memoir was descended from an ancient and most respectable Scottish family; he was the eldest son of George Abercrombie, Esquire, of Tullibody in the County of Clackmannom, by his wife Mary, daughter of Ralph Dundas, of Manour, Esquire. The exact date of his birth is not satisfactorily ascertained, but it is supposed to be in the year 1733, as appears by the monumental inscription upon the tomb of this gallant veteran. It has always been acknowledged that the youth of North Britain. were formerly sent into the army with a better education than their southern fellow soldiers, the officers of the British army not being, at the time Sir Ralph entered upon his military career, remarkable for enlightened minds or brilliant qualifications: the utmost care and attention had been bestowed upon the culture of his natural abilities, and he was considered as a young man of a solid understanding and cultivated mind. Sir Ralph entered into the military service of his country as a Cornet in the third regiment of Dragoon Guards on the 23d of May 1756: on the 19th of February, 1760, he was appointed to a Lieutenancy in the same regiment, wherein he continued to serve until the 24th of April, 1762, when he was promoted to a troop in the 3d regiment of horse. In this regiment he rose to the rank of Major on the 6th of June, 1770, and to that of Lieutenant-Colonel on the 19th of May, 1773. We find the name of Lieut.-Col. Abercrombie in the Brevet List of Colonels in November 1780, and on the 3d of November, 1781, his appointment to the Colonelcy of a new raised regiment, the 103d or King's Irish Infantry. On the conclusion of peace in 1783, Colonel Abercrombie was placed upon half-pay; on the 28th of September, 1787, was promoted to the rank of Major-General; and on the 17th of September, 1790, the Colonelcy of the 69th regiment of foot was presented to him, from which corps he was removed in April, 1792, to an older regiment, the 6th; from this regiment he was again removed on the 3d of November, 1795, to the command of the 9th dragoons.

Early in the war which followed the French revolution, Genera Abercrombie was employed on the Continent, and displayed a that rigid justice, goodness of heart, and mildness of temper, which were in him so happily combined. On the 23d of April, 1793, he obtained the honour of local rank as Lieutenant-General, and