Lord Dunfermline James

LIEUTENANT-GENERAL SIR RALPH ABERCROMBY KB 1793-1801A Memoir by His Son Lord Dunfermline James

Lt. Gen. Sir Ralph Abercromby was a Scottish soldier who served in the Seven Years' War, and the war with Revolutionary France. Intended for the Bar, he studied law at Leipzig in Germany, where he became entranced by the Generalship of Frederick the Great of Prussia. Giving up law for a Cornet's Commission in the Dragoon Guards, he learned his soldiering on the battlefields of the Seven Years' War. Disapproving of the conduct of the war against the American Colonies, he resigned from the Army, but rejoined on the outbreak of war with France. Given a Division under the disastrous command of the Duke of York, his conduct of the retreat in the Helder campaign was so skilful that he was knighted. Appointed to command forces in the West Indies, he added Trinidad and Tobago to Britain's colonies, but failed to wrest Puerto Rico from the Spanish. His next commands were in Ireland and Scotland, and in 1801 he was sent to 'dispossess' the French from Egypt. Landing successfully under heavy enemy fire at Aboukir Bay, however, Abercromby was mortally wounded at his subsequent victory over the French at Alexandria, dying aboard ship. This biography, written by one of the General's sons, is a full life of a popular and successful soldier.