Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 25.djvu/385

Rh rival (ib. ii. 411), and spoke of Hutchinson afterwards as ‘a sensible man, but no general’ (ib. iii. 360). Hutchinson retained his command. He sat for Lanesborough, co. Longford, in the Irish parliament of 1776–83, and for Cork city in the parliament of 1790–7 and 1798–1800. Cornwallis names him as one who spoke and voted in favour of the union in the great debate in the Irish House of Commons on 22 Jan. 1799, when the government was defeated (ib. iii. 43). On 5 Aug. 1799 he was appointed colonel-commandant of a newly raised second battalion 40th foot, Lord Craven being his lieutenant-colonel. As a volunteer Hutchinson accompanied Sir Ralph Abercromby to the Texel with the advance of the Duke of York's army, in August 1799, and when Lord Craven was disabled by the kick of a horse on going into action on 6 Oct., he took charge of Craven's brigade, and was severely wounded at its head by a rifle-ball in the thigh during the hard fighting round Alkmaar. He went out to the Mediterranean with Abercromby and Moore in the Seahorse frigate, arriving at Minorca in June 1800. He was with Abercromby at Leghorn and Genoa, and was appointed to command the right wing (ten thousand men) of the army of debarkation in the projected demonstration against Cadiz, which was abandoned on account of the pestilence raging in the city. The troops returned to Malta. Hutchinson as well as Abercromby was consulted by the government as to a descent on Egypt, and both regarded it as hazardous. In December 1800 Hutchinson was appointed to command the first division of Abercromby's army, which after many delays landed in Egypt, 10 March 1801. By seniority he succeeded to the command of the army on the fall of Abercromby in the great battle before Alexandria, 21 March 1801. For his services he received the thanks of parliament, and was made knight of the Bath. His generals appear to have had no confidence in him at first; and Sir Henry Edward Bunbury [q. v.] speaks of a cabal, little short of mutiny, formed by officers ‘of the highest rank’ for the purpose of virtually if not absolutely depriving Hutchinson of the chief command. They invited Coote and Moore to join them, and were foiled in their mad design chiefly by the uncompromising attitude of Moore (, Narrative of Certain Passages in the late War, p. 128). Bunbury's description of Hutchinson partly explains his unpopularity. ‘He was 44 years of age, but looked much older, with harsh features jaundiced by disease, extreme short-sightedness, a stooping body and a slouching gait, and an utter neglect of his dress.’ He shunned, Bunbury continues, ‘general society, was indolent, with an ungracious manner and a violent temper.’ Yet he was a good scholar, while ‘on military subjects his views were large, and his personal bravery was unquestioned’ (ib. p. 129). Hutchinson's movements at first were slow and cautious, but when his plans were formed he carried them out with great sagacity and success. A small force, detached under Colonel Brent Spencer, having seized Rosetta, and leaving a force under Eyre Coote (1762–1824) [q. v.] to blockade the French garrison of Alexandria (which he did not feel strong enough to attack) on the land side, Hutchinson started from his camp near Alexandria on 7 May 1801 to march to Cairo, with the double object of meeting Baird's force, which was known to be on its way from India, and preventing any serious attack by the French in Upper Egypt on the Turkish army advancing from Syria. This movement enabled him to separate the French garrisons of Alexandria and Cairo, each of them stronger than his own available force, and to deal with each in detail. On 21 June 1801 he arrived with his 4,500 British troops at Ghizeh, opposite Cairo, the grand vizier with a disorderly rabble of twenty-five thousand Turks taking up a position on the opposite bank, within cannon-shot of the city, at the same time. The next day the French garrison of ten thousand men under General Belliard capitulated on honourable terms. They were sent down the Nile, a British force under Moore keeping between them and the Turks, for embarkation for France. Hutchinson, who was detained for a while at Ghizeh by illness, then returned to Alexandria, and, sending Eyre Coote across the inundation of Lake Mareotis to attack the city from the westward, began to prosecute the siege with vigour. Menou, who commanded in Alexandria, at first refused to acknowledge the surrender of Cairo, but on 27 Aug. 1801 proposals were sent out for a three days' armistice, and on 2 Sept. 1801 Alexandria surrendered. Hutchinson, desirous of saving bloodshed, knowing that peace negotiations were in progress in Europe, and that it was of the highest importance that the British should remain in undisturbed possession of the country, agreed to terms nearly similar to those granted at Cairo. With an honourable regard to the claims of science he also agreed to except from the capitulation the collections of the French savants, which eventually formed the Musée de l'Egypte. Before the middle of October the last French soldier left the country, and Hutchinson, after dealing vigorously with an attempted act of treachery on the part of the Turkish authorities towards the Mame-