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 Brisbane on the camp of Famars, on 18 May 1793, and yet was present at the capture of Valenciennes, the battles before Dunkirk, at Nieuwpoort, and Nimeguen, and was often engaged in the disastrous winter retreat to Bremen. He was promoted major in the 53rd on 5 Aug 1795, and in October of the same year accompanied his regiment to the West Indies in Sir Ralph Abercromby's expedition. He was present at the capture of the Morne Chalot and the Morne Fortunée in St. Lucia, at St Vincent, Trinidad, Porto Rico, and San Domingo, and returned home for his health in 1798. Nevertheless he had to return to Jamaica in 1800, when he was gazetted lieutenant-colonel in the 69th regiment, but had to come home again in 1803. In 1805 the 69th was ordered to India, but Colonel Brisbane's health was not strong enough for a further residence in a hot country, and he reluctantly went on half-pay, and devoted himself to astronomy in the new observatory which he built at Brisbane.

He still hoped for active service, and, on his promotion as colonel in 1810, accepted the post of assistant adjutant-general. In 1812 his old friend Arthur Wellesley, then the Marquis of Wellington, asked for his services, and he was made brigadier-general, and ordered to the Peninsula. He joined the army in the winter of 1812, and was posted to the command of the 1st brigade of the 3rd or fighting division, commanded by Picton. With Picton's division he was present at the battles of Vittoria, the Pyrenees, the Nivelle, the Nive, Orthez, and Toulouse, and was mentioned in despatches for his services at the last of these battles, where he was wounded. He had so thoroughly established Ids reputation in the south of France, that the Duke of Wellington recommended him for a command in America, and Major-general Brisbane, as he had become in 1813, accompanied his Peninsular veterans to Canada, and commanded them at the battle of Plattsburg. This command lost him the opportunity of being present at Waterloo, but he commanded a brigade in the army of occupation in France, and for some time the second division there. His services were also rewarded by his being made a K.C.B. with the other Peninsular generals in 1814, on the extension of the order of the Bath. On the withdrawal of the army of occupation he returned to Scotland.

In 1821 he was appointed governor of New South Wales, and his short government there marks an era of importance in the history of Australia, for it was during his term of office that emigration commenced. The first free emigrants were Michael Henderson and William Howe, who had gone out in 1818, during the government of General Macquarie. That governor, whom Brisbane succeeded on 1 Dec. 1821, had administered his government with larger views than the four naval captains who had preceded him, and who had been little more than superintendents of the convict establishment, but he held that Australia was intended for the 'emancipists,' or ticket-of-leave men, and rather discouraged immigration. Brisbane, on the contrary, unwisely threw all power into the hands of the immigrants, many of whom were mere adventurers. He found a colony of 23,000 inhabitants, and left 36,000, many of them free immigrants, with capital and a disposition to work. He introduced the cultivation of the vine, the sugar-cane, and the tobacco plant, and encouraged horse-breeding, and he took a particular interest in exploring the island. Under his auspices Mr. Oxley explored the coast to the northward of Sydney for a new penal settlement, and discovered the river to which he gave the name of Brisbane, and on which now stands the city of Brisbane, the capital of Queensland. But Brisbane was, according to Dr. Lang, 'a man of the best intentions, but disinclined to business, and deficient in energy' (, History of New South Wales, 1st ed. i. 149), and he allowed the most terrible confusion to grow up in the finances of the colony. The colonial revenue consisted chiefly of the subsidy of 200,000l. a year paid by the government for the support of the convicts, and the corn for the colony had to be imported from India. This gave plenty of room for gambling, and by injudicious interference with the currency the finances got into such confusion, that speculators made large fortunes, and the government was often on the point of bankruptcy. The emancipists declared that all this gambling had been caused by the governor's favouritism ; and though there is no ground for imputing wilful complicity to him, there is no doubt that the adventurers about him made use of their influence for their own advantage. The home government was at last obliged to take notice of these complaints, and on 1 Dec. 1825, after exactly four years in the colony, he left for England, after weakly accepting a public dinner from the leading emancipists. On reaching England he was made colonel of the 34th regiment in 1826, and retired to Scotland, where he occupied himself with his observatory and his astronomical invesigations.

Brisbane's innate scientific tastes had received their confirmed bent towards 