Bigraphical Notice of the late Sir JAMES HENRy Craig, k. b.

TO bear testimony to the merits of a servant of the public, who has closed an honourable carcer in its employment, is a debt of gratitude which we feel a pride in discharging, not only as a tribute justly due to departed worth and eminence, but also in the hope, that, by holding out such examples as the subject of our present memoir affords, we shall adopt the best means of rousing in the breast of others, a generous ardour to emulate those principles, by a steady adherence to which Sir James Henry Craig arrived at the highest honour of his profession.But he was no less distinguished by his talents as a civilian than by his military acquirements; and were wę to confine ourselves to his civil services, a view of these would afford scope for very extended illustration. But as he is so much better known to the public in his military capacity, we shall consider chiefly that part of his life which was thus spent in the service of his country.

Sir J. H. Craig was of a respectable Scottish family, the Craigs of Dalnair and Costarton, and born at Gibraltar, where his father held the appointments of civil and military judge. He entered the army at the early age of fifteen, in 1763; and in a season of peace he imbibed the elementary knowledge of his profession in the best military schools of the continent. In 1770 he was appointed aid-ducamp to General Sir Robert Boyd, then governor of Gibraltar, and obtained a company in the 47th regiment, with which he went to America in 1774, and was present at the battles of Lexington and Bunker's Hill, in which latter engagement he was severely wounded. In 1776 he accompanied his regiment to Canada, commanding his company in the action of Trois Rivieres, and he afterwards commanded the advanced guard

of the army in the expulsion of the rebels from that province. In 1777 he was engaged in the actions at Ticonderago and Hubertown, in the lat ter of which engagements he was again severely wounded. Ever in a position of honourable danger, he received a third wound in the action at Freeman's Farm. He was engaged in the disastrous affair at Saratoga, and was then distinguished by General Burgoyne and the brave Fraser, who fell in that action, as a young of. ficer who promised to attain to the very height of the military career. On that occasion he was selected by General Burgoyne to carry home the dispatches, and was immediately thereafter promoted to a majority in the new 82d regiment, which he accompanied to Nova Scotia in 1778, to Penobscot in 1779, and to North Carolina in 1781; being engaged in a continued scene of active service during the whole of those campaigns, and generally commanding the light troops, with orders to act from his own discretion, on which his superiors in command relied with implicit confidence. In a service of this kind, the accuracy of his intelligence, the fertility of his resources, and the clearness of his military judgement, were alike conspicuous, and drew on him the attention of his Sovereign, who noted him as an officer of the highest promise. In 1781 he obtained the lieutenant-colonelcy of the 82d regiment, and in 1783 that of the 16th, which he commanded in Ireland till 1791, having been promoted to the rank of Colonel in 1790. In 1792 he went to the continent for the purpose of instructing himself in the discipline of the Prussian army, at that time esteemed the most perfect in Europe; and in a correspondence with General Sir D. Dundas, communicated the result of his knowledge to that most able tactitian, from whose professional science his country has derived so much advantage in the first improvement of the

disciplinary system; and it is believed that the first experiments of the new exercise were, by his Majesty's orders, reduced to the test of practice, under the eye of Colonel Craig, in the 16th regiment. In 1793 he was appointed to the command of Jersey, and soon thereafter of Guernsey, as lieutenant-governor. In 1794 he was appointed adjutant-general to the army under his Royal Highness the Duke of York, by whose side he served during the whole of that campaign on the continent, and whose favour and confidence he enjoyed to the latest moments of his life. In 1794 he obtained the rank of majorgeneral, and in the beginning of the following years he was sent on the expedition to the Cape of Good Hope, where, in the reduction and conquest of that most important settlement, with the co-operation of admiral Sir G. K. Elphinstone, and Major-General Clark, he attained to the highest pitch of his military reputation, and performed that signal service to his King and country, of which the memory will be as lasting as the national annals. Nor were his merits less conspicuous in the admirable plans of civil regulation, introduced by him in that hostile quarter, when invested with the chief authority, civil and military, as governor of the Cape, till succeeded in that situation by the Earl of Macartney, in 1797, who, by a deputation from his Majesty, invested General Craig with the red ribbon, as an honourable mark of his Sovereign's just sense of his distinguished services.

Sir James Craig had scarcely returned to England, when it was his Majesty's pleasure to require his services on the staff in India. On his arrival at Madras, he was appointed to the command of an expedition against Manilla, which not taking place, he proceeded to Bengal, and took the field service. During a five years command in India, his attention

and talents were unremittingly exerted to the improvement of the discipline of the Indian army, and to the promotion of that harmonious co-operation between its different constituent parts, on which not only the military strength, but the civil arrangement of that portion of the British empire so essentially depend. January 1801, Sir James Craig was promoted to the rank of lieutenant-general, and returned to England in 1802. He was appointed to the command of the eastern district, and remained in England till 1805, when, notwithstanding his constitution was much impaired by a long train of most active and fatiguing service, he was selected by his Sovereign to take the command of the British troops in the Mediterranean. He proceeded to Lisbon, Gibraltar, Malta, and from thence to Naples, to act in co-operation with the Russian army. But the object of these plans being frustrated by the event of the battle of Austerlitz, Sir James withdrew the troops from Naples to Messina, in Sicily. During the whole period of his command in the Mediterranean he had suffered severely from that malady which terminated his life,-a dropsy, proceeding from an organic affection of the liver; and feeling his disease sensibly gaining ground, he returned, with his Sovereign's permission, to England in 1806. A temporary abatement of his disorder flattering him with a prospect of recovery, and being unable to reconcile his mind to a situation of inactivity, he once more accepted of an active command from the choice of his Sovereign, and in 1808, on the threatening appearance of hostilities with the United American States, was sent out to Quebec, as governor in chief of British America. The singular union of vigour and prudence, which distinguished his government in that most important official situation, are so recently impressed on the public mind, as to

need

need no detail in this place. His merits were avowed and felt on both sides of the Atlantic; and as they proved the termination, so they will ever be felt as throwing the highest lustre on the whole train of his public services. His constitution now utterly enfeebled by a disease which precluded all hope of recovery, he returned to England in July 1811.Three weeks before his death he was promoted to the rank of General. He looked forward with manly fortitude to his approaching dissolution, and, in January 1812, ended a most honourable and useful career by an easy death, at the age of sixty-two.

marked with yellow and black bands, hanging from the under-sides of the branches by slender threads. The smaller caterpillar is of a greenish cast, with a black head; it does not appear till the end of April, or even the middle of May, according to the state of the weather: when about to enter the pupa state, it descends from the bush and penetrates a short way into the ground: here the chrysalid, of a dirty appearance, remains till the following April.

Both of these sorts of caterpillars are exceedingly destructive where they abound. In many places only the former is found; and in other gardens the latter is most common. They may both be called gooseberry

tory.

March. THE whole month has been most propitious, both for the labours of the field and the garden; forming a striking contrast with the same month last year, which was remarkable for its severity, the snow having lain deep on the ground till. the beginning of April.

Gooseberry Caterpillars. Much has of late been written, in books of agriculture, and in periodical journals, concerning gooseberry caterpillars. It is well known that the larvæ of a number of different species of Phalana, Papilio, &c. occasionally feed on the buds, leaves,and flowers of gooseberry and currant bushes. Two kinds are frequently met with, and commit great devastations. These are easily distinguished, both by their size and colour, and by the time of their appearance. The larger is of a blackish hue, and begins to devour the leaves as soon as they expand: it has this season already stripped hundreds of bushes in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh: it undergoes the change into the pupa state, still remaining upon the bush, in the course of June; and every body has seen the chrysalids,

P

sort more usually designated as the gooseberry caterpillar, perhaps for no better reason than that it produces the magpie-moth, which naturalists have chosen to call Phalana grossulariata, or the moth of the gooseberry

tree.

In a very concise, but plain and perspicuous letter, published in the first number of the Memoirs of the Caledonian Horticultural Society, Mr Gib of East Linton recommends, for the destruction of the larger and early kind, the pouring of boiling hot water on the stems and branches of the bushes during winter, the animals lodging constantly about the bush,and taking shelter in the crevices of the bark, and being thereby destroyed, while the bush is not injured. For exterminating the smaller and later kind, he recommends merely digging deep around the bushes in the course of the winter, by which means the greater part are destroyed, as their pupæ remain in the soil during the winter months, as already mentioned.

The President of the Board of Agriculture, in his Account of the Husbandry of Scotland, mentions as a "most useful discovery" of a re

spectable

spectable gentleman in East-Lothian, that the gooseberry caterpillar lays her eggs in the earth below the bush; that these are ready to hatch at the time the young leaves are budding; and that, by raking off the surface. mould and mixing it with hot lime, the eggs are destroyed."

This statement is evidently inaccurate in various respects. The common or large gooseberry caterpillar cannot be alluded to, for it never descends into the earth. The smaller, or greenish kind of caterpillar, does indeed descend into the earth; but certainly not for the purpose of laying eggs (which no caterpillar does,) but of undergoing the change into the pupa state. There is still another difficulty; for this second kind is not hatched at the time the gooseberry bush is "budding," but commonly in May, six weeks or two months after the leaves are expanded. That such mistakes should escape so voluminous and multifarious a writer, engaged at the same time in important public busmess, is a thing not to be wondered at; the wonder being that he should be able to write so much, so well. From a communication inserted in a late number of the Farmer's Magazine, it appears, that the "dis. covery" alluded to by the Right Hon. Baronet resolves into the letter of Mr Gib above mentioned. The East Lothian gentleman disclaims the merit of the discovery; but at the same time affirms that it is one " which deserves a reward of at least £.400 or £.500 Sterling" towards the raising of which he volunteers to contribute a fair proportion.

The candour and generosity thus displayed are doubtless very commendable; but before such a proposal is formally made to the publie, it may be worth while to inquire whether any "discovery" has really been made.

The discovery cannot surely consist in the pouring of boiling hot water on gooseberry bushes during win

ter; yet this is the only remedy proposed for the common kind of gooseberry caterpillar which has, this very season, already destroyed innumerable bushes around Edinburgh. It must therefore consist in the dig ging of the ground below the bushes during winter, and so burying and destroying the chrysalids of the other or smaller sort of caterpillar, which appears in May, and which is less common near this city.

Mr Gib appears carefully to have watched the progress of this second kind of caterpillar through its different stages, till he found the shells (chrysalids) in the ground: he therefore deserves the praise of being a patient observer of nature; but not of being an original discoverer; for such observations had been made long ago, not only by naturalists (see among many others, Stewart's Elements of Natural History, art. Papilio Rubi, &c.) but by country gentlemen and practical men. I understand that the removing of the surface soil, under the bushes, during winter, and burying it in deep pits, has been practised for twelve or fifteen years past by Mr John Keir, factor to Lord Hopeton in his garden at Philipston; and for the same length of time by Mr John Tweedie, gardener at Sundrum, who traced the progress of the animal through all its changes, many years before Mr Gib had attended to the subject.

The public, however, are much indebted, both to Mr Gib and to the Society which published his letter; and they who remember to have observed that small green caterpillars appeared on their bushes in April or May of former years, should lose no time, even this season, in removing the surface soil, and burying it deep. Where the chrysalids are common, they are easily detected about an inch or an inch and a half below the surface.

N.

View of the present State of parliamentary representation in all the counties of Ireland.

(From Wakefield's Account of Ireland, statistical and political.)

THE qualification of freeholder is the same in Ireland as in England, a clear forty shillings' interest for a life; but as it is customary in Ireland to insert lives in all leases, freeholders are created without the actual possession of property being considered as necessary, and their votes are considered as a right of the landlord. This system of creating votes is in Ireland carried to an extent, of which people in England can have no idea. The passion for acquiring political influence prevails throughout the whole country; and it has an overwhelming influence upon the people to divide and subdivide, for the purpose of making freeholders, is the great object of every owner of land; and I consider it one of the most pernicious practices that has ever been introduced into the operations of political machinery. It reduces the elective franchise nearly to universal suffrage, to a population who, by the very instrument by which they are made free, are reduced to the most abject state of personal bondage. I have known freeholders registered among mountain tenantry, whose yearly head-rent did not exceed 2s. 6d.; but living upon this half-crown tenure, were enabled to swear to a derivative interest of forty shillings per annum. This right, instead of being an advantage to the freeholder, is an excessive burden, as he is obliged to attend elections at the command of

• By an act passed in the reign of Queen Anne, protestant weavers, who had served five years' apprenticeship, and two years as journeymen, and who kept one or more looms employed, were declared freemen, and

could vote for members of parliament; but they were afterwards deprived of this privilege by the 1st Geo. II. c. 11,

March 1813.

the agent, often with great inconvenience; and is ordered to vote for the object of his landlord's choice, with as little ceremony as the Jamaica planter would direct his slave to the performance of the meanest offices. Of

this we have a striking and recent instance, in the case of Mr Alcock, member for the county of Wexford, who challenged Mr Colclough. The cause of this unfortunate quarrel was, that the latter refused to relinquish the votes of the tenantry of a Mrs Cholmondeley, who had written to her agent, to desire her tenants to vote for the former; but, notwithstanding this mandate, these poor people for once insisted on giving their suffrages to Sheridan and Colclough. Could Addison rise from his grave, what would be his opinion of such freeholders? I have alluded to the above lamentable transaction, to shew what are the common feelings in Ireland on such occasions: and these ideas are not confined to the county where the fatal event took place to which I have alluded; they are universal throughout every part of the island.

After this information, the reader will not be surprised to learn, that many counties are overruled in their choice by the will of some great territorial possessor; and there are few in which a coalition of two or three of the principal land-owners will not settle the election according to their own views.

ANTRIM County.-The marquises of Hertford and Donegal, earl O'Neil, and the Antrim family, whose property is now divided between two heiresses, engross nearly the whole land of the county; and on their estates all the freeholds originate. The influence of the marquis of Hertford, therefore, returns a member with as much ease as the owner of Old Sarum sends one to the House of Commons; and nothing but an opposition on the part of the other three families can create a contest. A present, loid O'Neil's in

terest