Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 10.djvu/181

 

 CHAVASSE, WILLIAM (1785–1814), an officer in the East India Company's service, attempted, in conjunction with a brother officer, Captain Macdonald, to explore in 1814 the route traversed by the ten thousand under Xenophon. They penetrated as far as Ingra, near Bagdad, where they were captured by a Kurdish chieftain and imprisoned in a dungeon. They obtained their liberty by the payment of eight hundred piastres, but Chavasse was seized with brain fever and died. He was buried near Bagdad.

 CHEADSEY, WILLIAM (1510? – 1574?). [See .]

CHEAPE, DOUGLAS (1797–1861), advocate and author, younger son of John Cheape of Rossie, Fifeshire, was born in 1797. Sir John Cheape [q. v.] was his elder brother. He studied law, and was admitted a member of the Faculty of Advocates, Edinburgh. In 1827 he was appointed professor of civil law in the university. This appointment he resigned in 1842, owing to 'domestic circumstances,' when the faculty recorded 'their high sense of the very able and efficient manner in which he had discharged the duties of the chair.' He introduced some useful reforms, the chief of which was the substitution of English for Latin in the class examinations; but his only publication on the subject was his 'Introductory Lecture on the Civil Law,' delivered in the university of Edinburgh (Edinburgh, 1827). He was engaged for the pursuer in a famous case, Southgate and Mandatory v, Montgomery, on which he wrote a once well-known squib called 'Res Judicata.' This with some other contributions of a like nature was published in the 'Court of Session Garland' (with Appendix, Edinburgh, 1839). Other squibs of his were 'The Book of the Chronicles of the City; being a Scriptural account of the Election of a member for the City of Edinburgh in May 1834' (manuscript prefatory note to Museum copy), and (probably) 'La festa d'Overgroghi ' (viz. Over Gogar, near Edinburgh), a burlesque opera in Italian and English. Cheape died at Trinity Grove, Trinity, near Edinburgh, 1 Sept. 1861. He married in 1837 Ann, daughter of General Rose of Holme, Nairnshire.

 CHEAPE, JOHN (1792–1876), general, son of John Cheape of Rossie, Fifeshire, was born in 1792. He was educated at Woolwich and Addiscombe, and entered the Bengal engineers as a second lieutenant on 3 Nov. 1809. He first served in Lord Hastings's two campaigns against the Pindarrees, and was present at the sieges of Dhamouni and Mondela in 1815 and 1816. He next served with the Nerbudda field force under General Adams in 1817, and under Sir John Doveton and Sir John Malcolm in 1818, and was present at the siege of Asseerghur, after which he was promoted captain on 1 March 1821. In 1824 he was ordered to Burmah, and served through the three deadly campaigns of the first Burmese war. For more than twenty years after the conclusion of the Burmese war he had no opportunity of going on active service, but was employed in civil engineering. His promotion, however, went on, and he became major in 1830, lieutenant-colonel in 1834, and colonel in 1844. In 1848 Cheape happened to be employed in the Punjab when the siege of Mooltan was determined upon; he was at once appointed chief engineer, and conducted the operations which led to the fall of that fortress. He then joined the army under Lord Gough, and though an engineer officer and chief engineer with the army, it was Cheape who directed the murderous artillery fire which won the battle of Goojerat. Lord Gough mentioned his services in his despatches, and Cheape was made a C.B. and an aide-de-camp to the queen. When the second Burmese war broke out in 1852, Cheape was made a brigadier-general and appointed second in command to General Godwin. As in the first Burmese war, the fatal mistake of despising their enemy led the English commanders into great straits, and the brigand chief Myat-thoon inflicted as