Convicts destined for Botany Bay. –It is now seven weeks since the ten Derby convicts were sent off with several others, whose destination for the rest of their lives is Botany Bay. They were, upon landing at Sheerness from the Retribution, put on board the Tottenham, which was engaged to land them at their place of punishment. The number on board that ship, on leaving Sheerness, was between 2 to 300, many of whom were diseased and infirm. Their condition has been rendered most intolerable from an unaccountable delay that has taken place. The ship Tottenham had not proceeded farther than the Downs when she lost her rudder, by some accident or other. She returned to Sheerness, where she now lies, and where she is likely to lie for some time, upon the pretence that the loss she has sustained is a justification for delay, however protracted. The unfortunate inmates have been led to expect that some important mitigation of their sentence has taken place ;–so that between the suspense, and the terrible species of confinement to which they are subject, their sufferings are hardto be described.– Observer.
The Hon. Lieut.-Colonel Erskine. –It is with the greatest concern we have to mentioned the death of Lieut.-Colonel Erskine, Lord Erskine’s youngest son, on his passage to Ceylon. He served throughout the campaigns in Spain as a Captain of Light Infantry in the 51st regiment, and behaved with great gallantry in the battle of the Pyrenees, where being shot in the thigh he was sent home by the Medical Board, and on his recovery was placed by the Duke of York on the Staff of the Army in the Adjutant-General’s Department when the Duke of Wellington took the command in Flanders. He was in the battle of the 16th of June, and afterwards on the 18th at the battle of Waterloo, where his station placed him in the dangerous position of being attendant on the Duke, around whom almost every officer was either killed or wounded. Amongst the rest this brave young man had his left arm carried off by a cannon-ball, which passing along the other laid bare the whole of it, by which he lost the use of two of his fingers, but that arm was saved. When the cannon-shot had thrown him from his horse, and as he lay bleeding upon the groun in this mangled condition, the Prussian musketry and trumpets being heard at a distance, he seized his hat with his remaining shattered arm. and waving it round him cheered his companions in the midst of the dying and the dead, the Duke of Wellington being then close by him who desired he might carried to his tent.
It must be some consolation to his afflicted family, that he must have distinguished himself in the opinion of his great Commander, as he was immediately recommended by him for the rank of Major, though a very young officer, and in a year afterwards to the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel, with the appointment of Adjutant-General in Ceylon, and if he had then fortunately sailed for India his life might probably have been saved ; but his disposition being as affectionate as it was animated, he could not be persuaded to leave Mrs Erskine, who was pregnant, and remaining here during the winter, the cough, with consumptive symptoms, arising from his wound, laid too deep a hold on him to derive benefit from the voyage, and he died on his passage to India.
Colonel Erskine was only 25 years of age, and has left three sons and a daughter, and an infant a few months old.
The marriage of the Duke of Clarence with the rich heiress Miss Wykeham is said to be finally arranged ; and from what we observe, it is not likely to suffer any delay from the late domestic calamity. it is said that the Prince Regent has given his own personal assent ; but whether it has passed through the constitutional forms, and that the Royal Assent in Council has been given we do not pretend to know. It must have that sanction to secure the Lady the right, for herself and heirs, of succeeding to the Throne. On this interesting subject it cannot be forgotten, that King in Council refused his assent in three former instances.
The refusal of the Princess Royal of Denmark arrived in town on Monday or Tuesday last week. On Wednesday it was communicated to his Royal Highness the Duke of Clarence, and on Thursday he set off to Brighton, offered his hand to Miss Wykeham, and ” was a thriving wooer.”
Colonel Henry Fitzclarence, the son of the Duke of Clarence, lately deceased, was a young man of uncommon energy of character, and of talents and acquirements. In the affair of the 10th Light Dragoons, he displayed a spirit of independence and manliness the most honourable. He was an admirable linguist, and, as we understand, was about to return to England, with the view of being employed in the Diplomacy, for which he was peculiarly qualified.
Citation: Scotsman (Edinburgh, United Kingdom), 28 February 1818, available at the Scissors and Paste Database, http://www.scissorsandpaste.net/132.