The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19, No. 528, January 7, 1832 by Various
page 8 of 55 (14%)
page 8 of 55 (14%)
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and pathos to the ballad. It is not generally known that some of the
élite of the English nobility served in this country during the revolution, but the fact may be ascertained by referring to the biographical notices which from time to time appear in foreign publications. Many gallant young men, who were the only hope of their families, and made their first essay in arms against their transatlantic brethren, were doomed to fall at the onset of their career. Some of the choicest blood of English chivalry bedewed the plains of Brandywine, and valour, birth and merit were alike an unavailing sacrifice in the struggle at Saratoga. There was one distinguished family in England, which lost its head at this memorable battle, and in which the voice of weeping was heard upon the advent of its melancholy tidings. I allude to that of Sir Francis Carr Clerke, the aid de camp of general Burgoyne, who, although he possessed hereditary honours, and a fair estate in Lancashire, was at the age of twenty nine mortally wounded in the wilds of America, and now sleeps in an obscure grave near that of the unfortunate Frazer. Several of our prints have lately copied an obituary of the Earl of Balcarras, who was also at Saratoga and had two remarkable rencontres with general Arnold, the one, when at the head of the British Light Infantry, he defended himself against his desperate valour, and the other when he subsequently refused to recognise him as an acquaintance at the court of St. James, even upon the introduction of the King himself. |
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