Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1900, volume 4).djvu/392

356 career in Flanders in 1742, foutrht at Dettingen and in other engagements, and was promoted lieu- tenant-colonel of the 47th regiment, 28 Feb., 1751. In 1752 he was stationed at Halifax. N. S., and succeeded in suppressing the riots among the Germans at Lunenburg, about fifty miles from the latter city. He was governor of Port Roy- al (now Annapolis), Nova Scotia, in 1754, and in June, 1755, was in command at the capture of Beause- jour and other French posts. He was lieu- tenant - governor of Nova Scotia in 1756. The following year he was transferred to the 60th, or Royal American, regiment, and attached to Lou- don's army. He led a battalion at the siege of Louisburg under Amherst in 1758, and, as brigadier-general and second in com- mand, was severely wounded at the capture of Quebec. For his gallantry in this action he was promoted colonel of the 17th foot, and subse- quently made major-general and lieutenant-gen- eral. He accompanied the expedition that took Martinique in 1762, and was made governor of Berwick, Scotland, in 1765, and of Portsmouth in 1778, which borough he represented in parliament. He was oilered a commission to fight in the Ameri- can war, but refused to draw liis sword against the colonies. — His brother, Henry, b. 13 July, 1740, was a lieutenant-colonel of engineers. He was shot through the body at the battle of Long Island, 1 Aug., 1776, and was killed at the battle of Mon- mouth, N. J., 28 June, 1778.

MONCRIEFF, James, soldier, b. in the county of Fife, Scotland, in 1744; d. in Dunkirk, F'rance, 7 Sept., 1798. He was educated for the army at Woolwich as a military engineer. After passing through several grades he was promoted captain, and ordered to New York. As he was related by marriage to Gov. William Livingston and other Americans of high station, the Whig leaders enter- tained the hope that he would espouse their cause, but he adhered to the crown, and in 1776 was with Lord Percy on Staten island. In 1778 he was taken prisoner at Flatbush, Long Island, by a party that went from the New Jersey shore in boats ex- pressly to seize him and other persons of note. During the campaign in tlie south he performed valuable service in his department, notably in the defence of Savannah, Ga., Gen. Prevost commend- ing him to the official notice of his superiors in the most laudatory terms. He was in consequence bre vetted lieutenant-colonel, 27 Sept., 1780, and received " a very generous donation from his royal master." Col. Moncrieff also planned the defen- sive works at Charleston, S. C, and was warmly complimented therefor by Sir Henry Clinton. At the evacuation he appears to have been guilty of an act that greatly tarnished his reputation. Eight hundred slaves, employed by him in en- gineering work, were shipped to the West Indies by his direction and, as it is also asserted, for his benefit. At the end of the war he returned to England, and was killed in a sally that was made by the French from Dunkirk during the siege of that city by the Duke of York.

MONDELET, Charles Joseph Elzear, Canadian jurist, b. in St. Charles, Lower Canada, 27' Dec, 1801 ; d. in January, 1877. He is the grandson of Dominique Mondelet, a French army surgeon who came to Canada before the conquest. He was educated at the colleges of Nicolet and Montreal, completing his course at the latter, and was afterward employed as an assistant by the astronomical commission that was appointed to ascertain the position of the boundary-line between the United States and Canada under the treaty of Ghent. He studied law, was admitted to the bar in 1822, and practised at Three Rivers, and after 1830 in Montreal. He was appointed district judge for Terrebonne, L'Assomption. and Berthier in 1842, circuit judge at Montreal in 1844, judge of the superior court in 1849, of the seigniorial court in 1855, and assistant judge in appeals, court of Queen's bench, in 1858. He took an active part in political controversies, and was arrested for politi- cal offences in 1828 and 1838. but was never tried.- He published " Lettres sur I'edueation " (1840).

MONDESIR, Charles Stanislas (mong-day- zeer), French naturalist, b. in New Oi'leans, La., in 1750; d. in Aix, Provence, in 1817. He entered the church, was provided with an abbey in 1770- through the influence of the Duke de Choiseul, employed in several missions, and in 1781 sent to- Cayenne, where he tried to naturalize the cochineal insect and the nopal-tree on which it feeds. He went afterward to Peru to study the eff>ects of the cholera, which had broken out in Callao, and with other scientists advised the tearing down of many buildings. He afterward made, at the instance of the Spanish authorities, an examination of the mines of Xepero and Barillo, discovered a sulphur- mine in the neighborhood of the latter place, and was still in Peru wdien the expedition round the world under command of Capt. Malaspina arrived in Concepcion in 1790. He immediately joined the explorers, guided them through the Andes range, and accompanied Malas[)ina along the Californian coast to the Straits of Nootka. He then went to- New Spain and lived there several months, occu- pied in forming an herbarium of the plants of the country. The revolution in France had mean- while deprived him of the income from his abbey, and for several years after 1793 he assisted Louis Nee in preparing a " Flora Peruana." Returning to France in 1802, he recovered a part of his estate, and, settling in Aix, devoted the remain- der of his life to the arrangement of the mate- rials he had collected during his twenty years in America. Mondesir's works are few but valuable. They are " Memoire sur la cochenille et le nopal, et de leur aeclimatation a Saint Domingue et a la Guiane " (Paris, 1783) : " Histoire et effets de I'epi- demie de cholera asiatique a Callao dans le Perou, pendant I'ete de 1783 " (1785) ; " Histoire, descrip- tion et proprietes des plantes medicinales du royaume de la Nouvelle Espagne " (2 vols., Aix, 1807) ; " Description des mines d'argent du Perou " (1811); and '-Memoire sur les mines de soufre du Perou, suivi d'une description de celle de Xepero,. et d'une etude sur les precedes d'exploitation " (2 vols., Aix, 1813).

MONELL, Claudius L., jurist, b. in Hudson, N. Y., 20 March, 1815; d. in Narragansett Pier, R. I., 1 Aug., 1876. He was the son of Joseph D. Monell, a prominent jurist. Educated chiefly in his native town, he removed to New York in 1836, studied law with Benjamin F. Butler, and was admitted to the bar in 1837. In 1841 he returned to Hudson and formed a partnership with. Judge Henry Hogeboom. His professional career