Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 18.djvu/109

 2 vols. 8vo, a translation from the French of Charles Gobinet. 2. An edition of John Goter's ‘Spiritual Works,’ Newcastle, 1790, 16 vols. 12mo.

His manuscript collections, in 2 vols. 4to, for a continuation of Dodd's ‘Church History’ are preserved at Ushaw College.



EYRE, VINCENT (1811–1881), general, born at Portsdown, near Portsmouth, on 22 Jan. 1811, was the third son of Captain Henry Eyre, of an old stock of Derbyshire cavaliers, by Mary, daughter of J. Concannon, esq., of Loughrea, co. Galway, Ireland. He was educated at the Norwich grammar school under the Rev. E. Valpy, who was also the teacher of Sir Archdale Wilson of Delhi, Colonel Stoddart, the Bokhara victim, and Sir [q. v.] Eyre entered the Military Academy at Addiscombe when about fifteen, and passed out into the artillery of the company on 12 Dec. 1828. He was gazetted to the Bengal establishment, and landed in Calcutta 21 May 1829. After eight years he was promoted to be first lieutenant, and appointed to the horse artillery. In 1833 Eyre married the daughter of Colonel Sir James Mouat, bart. She died in 1851. In 1839 Eyre was appointed commissary of ordnance to the Cabul field force. He proceeded to Cabul through the Punjab, taking with him an immense train of ordnance stores, and reached Cabul in April 1840. The arsenal was got in order, and provision made for the supply of shot, shell, and other war materials to the garrisons in Afghanistan. On 2 Nov. 1841 the rising took place in which Sir [q. v.] was killed. The British force was soon blockaded in the cantonments by the Afghans. They made desperate sallies, in one of which, on 13 Nov., Eyre was in command of two guns sent out with a force to act against the walled village of Beymaroo. Early in the day he was severely wounded. When in December Major E. Pottinger was constrained to negotiate for the withdrawal of the army, four married officers with their families were demanded by Akbar as hostages. Eyre volunteered to go, but the negotiation fell through. A treaty for evacuation was, however, ratified on 1 Jan. 1842. Eyre, still suffering from his wound, and hampered by the presence of his wife and child, started with the column (6 Jan. 1842). On the 9th Akbar demanded that the married officers with their families should be surrendered as hostages. The Eyres were among the families so surrendered. They heard soon afterwards of the complete destruction of the column. They passed nearly nine months in captivity, moved to different forts, and suffering many privations. The climate, however, was healthy; public worship was observed, and a school was established for the children. Eyre kept a diary and took portraits of the officers and ladies. The manuscript was transmitted to a friend in India with great difficulty. It was immediately published in England as ‘Military Operations at Cabul … with a Journal of Imprisonment in Afghanistan’ (February 1843, followed by a conclusion of the journal in April 1843), and excited universal interest. A new edition revised and enlarged by him appeared in 1878. In August the captives were suddenly hurried off towards Bamian in the Hindu Khush, under a threat of being sold as slaves to the Uzbegs of Turkestan. From this fate they were saved by the energy of Pottinger, who succeeded on 11 Sept. in buying over the Afghan officer commanding the escort. Sir George Pollock was now advancing for their rescue. On the 17th they met Sir R. Shakespear at the head of a friendly party of Kizilbash horse, and on the 21st they marched into Pollock's camp at Cabul. They numbered thirty-five officers, fifty-one soldiers, twelve women, and twenty-two children. Returning to India with Pollock's army, Eyre was posted once more to the horse artillery. While quartered at Meerut he originated a club for the European soldiery, probably the first of the kind. In December 1844 he was appointed to command the artillery of the newly formed ‘Gwalior contingent.’ He raised this force to a high pitch of efficiency, as was proved by its actions in the mutiny. His period of service at Gwalior was marked by an attempt to found a colony for the families of Portuguese natives left destitute by the disbandment of the Mahratta force. He obtained land for their settlement, which, by his desire, was called Esapore, i.e. the abode of christians. After prospering for a time it was broken up by the unhealthiness of the situation. He also undertook the duties of executive engineer, architect, road-maker, &c., to the station, and erected a very handsome little church. In 1854 he became major, and in May 1855 visited England on furlough. In February 1857 he returned to India, and was posted to a horse-artillery battery at Thayat Myo in Burma, but was recalled to India on the breaking out of the mutiny. In July he was sent up the Ganges for Allahabad. On the 28th he reached Buxar, where he learned that a force of mutineers under Koor Singh, the rajah of Jagdespur, was besieging a small body of government servants in a fortified house at Arrah, forty miles from Buxar. Eyre took the responsibility of dis-