Hew Dalrymple Ross

Memoir of General Sir Hew Dalrymple Hew Dalrymple Ross

A controversial British commander of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars




Hew Dalrymple was a British career soldier who joined the 31st Regiment of Foot in 1763. By 1793 he was a colonel of the First (later Grenadier) Guards and in command of his own battalion. During the inauspicious Flanders Campaign in the Duke of York he saw action in a number of battles. After several administrative positions he was appointed acting governor of Gibraltar, a post he held until 1808. The next part of Dalymple's career was the one for which he is principally remembered, although it is blighted by controversy. He was appointed Commander of the Portuguese Expedition to replace Burrard and Wellesley (the future Duke of Wellington) after the victory at Vimiero, where the French force under Junot had been comprehensibly defeated. Dalrymple infamously halted Wellesley's pursuit of the French to Lisbon and subsequently became instrumental in the truce known as the Convention of Cintra, which allowed the French to be transported back to France in possession of the spoils of their invasion. The outrage caused by Dalrymple's actions became a national scandal leading to Moore's appointment to command in Iberia.

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