Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 38.djvu/374

 and had forty-four officers and six hundred men killed and wounded. Moore was shot in the thigh, but remained in the field. In a subsequent melee, when the French were repulsed by the 92nd Highlanders, he was again wounded severely in the face. He was carried off the field in an insensible condition by two soldiers of the 92nd, whose names he never could discover, although he offered a reward of 20l. (cf., Hist. Rec. 92nd Foot). Much interesting information respecting the campaign in Holland is given by Bunbury (see Narrative, pp. 37-56). When he was able to be moved, Moore was sent home. His very temperate habits aided his recovery, and on 24 Dec. 1799 he resumed command of his brigade at Chelmsford. On 25 Nov. he had been appointed colonel-commandant of a second battalion added to the 52nd foot, the regiment afterwards so closely associated with him.

When Abercromby was appointed to the Mediterranean command, Moore went out with him, arriving at Minorca on 22 June 1800. He commanded a division of the troops sent to relieve the Austrian garrison of Genoa, and after the failure returned to Minorca, where Abercromby made a strict investigation into the discipline and interior economy of the regiments under his command. Moore commanded a division of the army in the demonstration against Cadiz in October 1800, and afterwards accompanied Abercromby to Malta with the troops for Egypt. Abercromby despatched Moore to Jaffa to report on the state of the Turkish army there under the grand vizier. Moore arrived at Jaffa on 9 Jan. 1801, and was met by news of the death from plague of the British commissioner, Brigadier-general George Frederic Kœhler. He found the Turks an undisciplined mob, with their ranks never wholly free from the plague. On 20 Jan. he returned to Malta.

In the expedition to Egypt he commanded the reserves, consisting of the flank companies of the 40th, under Brent Spencer, the 23rd fusiliers, 28th foot, under Edward Paget, 42nd Highlanders, and the Corsican rangers under Hudson Lowe, with the llth dragoons and Hompesch hussars attached. [q. v.] was his second in command. Moore's reserves were the first troops to land at Aboukir on 8 March 1801, and in the battle of 21 March before Alexandria, where Abercromby fell, were on the British left, and bore the brunt of the fight. The 28th greatly distinguished themselves, as did the 42nd, who captured the standard of Bonaparte's 'invincibles' (cf., pp. 57–155). Moore was severely wounded, and was sent on board the Diadem frigate. He recovered sufficiently to proceed up the Nile in a djerin, and resumed command of the reserve, before Cairo, on 29 June 1801. After the surrender of the French army in Cairo, Moore with his division escorted them to the coast to embark for France, marching and encamping nightly between the French troops and flotilla and the attendant horde of Turks under the capitan pacha. He remained in Egypt until the fall of Alexandria (2 Sept. 1801). On returning home, he received the thanks of parliament and the Turkish order of the Crescent.

Moore, while unemployed, spent most of his time in London with his family. On 18 Jan. 1803 the 52nd regiment, of which he had become colonel on 8 May 1801, at the death of General Cyrus Trapaud, was ordered to be formed into a light corps. On the renewal of the war with France, Moore was nominated to a brigade, first at Brighton, and afterwards at Canterbury. On 9 July 1803 he was appointed to a brigade, consisting at first of the 4th king's own, 52nd, 59th, 70th, and 95th rifles, which encamped on Shorncliffe, above Sandgate; the brigade was part of the division commanded by General [q. v.], with Lord Chatham and Sir James Murray Pulteney as lieutenant-generals, the headquarters being at Chatham, and afterwards at Canterbury. The French armies intended for the invasion of England then lay encamped at Boulogne. Some of the regiments in Moore's brigade were shifted, and the 43rd, which had been in an unsatisfactory state, was put under him, and ordered to be trained as a light corps.

While at Minorca in 1800 Moore's attention had been directed by Abercromby to the need in the British army of a light infantry corps whose training should correspond with that of the French voltigeurs. A few battalions so trained under sensible officers might, it was suggested, serve as a model for the rest of the army (autograph letter from Abercromby in Edinburgh Naval and Military Exhibition, 1889). He had moreover noticed the system adopted by Major Kenneth Mackenzie, afterwards Sir [q. v.], then in temporary command of the 90th foot at Minorca. This consisted in breaking up the battalion into skirmishers, supports, and reserve, on the plan afterwards adopted for light movements throughout the army. He was struck with its excellence, and with his usual openness and candour expressed his surprise that it had never before suggested itself to his mind' (, Scottish Highlanders, i. 433-4, footnote; ). At Shorncliffe he now introduced not only the system of drill and manoeuvre based upon these prin-