Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 39.djvu/381

 uprising of the Indian tribes in the west, known as the Conspiracy of Pontiac.

After his retirement from Canada in 1766, Murray was for a time on the Irish staff. He was transferred from the royal Americans to the colonelcy of the 13th foot in 1767, became a lieutenant-general 25 May 1772, and in 1774 was appointed governor of Minorca, in succession to Sir [q. v.] When war broke out with Spain, in 1779, a lieutenant-governor was added to the establishment of the island, in the person of Sir, K.B. [q. v.], between whom and Murray there was want of accord from the first, and afterwards open rupture. In 1781 Minorca was threatened with a siege. Murray sent off his wife and family to Leghorn, and, shutting himself up in Fort St. Philip, prepared for a vigorous defence. On 20 Aug. he was blockaded by a force of sixteen thousand French and Spaniards under the Duc de Crillon. Murray's garrison consisted of 2,016 regular troops, four hundred of them being invalids ('worn-out soldiers'), and all the troops more or less unhealthy, and two hundred seamen from the Minorca sloop of war, which had been scuttled and sunk at the mouth of the harbour to bar the entrance. Despairing of reducing the place, which had very extensive bomb-proof cover, De Crillon secretly offered Murray a bribe of a million sterling to surrender. Murray spurned the insult. 'When your brave ancestor,' he wrote back to De Crillon under date 16 Oct. 1781, 'was desired by his sovereign to assassinate the Duc de Guise, he returned the answer that you should have done when you were charged to assassinate the character of a man whose birth is as illustrious as your own or that of the Duc de Guise. I can have no further communication with you except in arms. If you have any humanity, pray send clothing for your unfortunate prisoners in my possession. Leave it at a distance to be taken for them, as I will admit of no contact for the future but such as is hostile to the most inveterate degree.' De Crillon replied: 'Your letter restores each of us to our place; it confirms the high opinion I always had of you. I accept your last proposal with pleasure.' On 5 Feb. 1782 Murray's garrison was so reduced by the ravages of scurvy that only six hundred men remained fit for duty, and of these five hundred were tainted with the disease. 'Such was the uncommon spirit of the king's troops that they concealed their disorder and inability rather than go into hospital; several men died on guard after having stood on sentry, their fate not being discovered till called upon for the relief (Murray's despatch, see Ann. Reg. 1782, chap, x.) A capitulation was arranged, and the remnant of the garrison, six hundred old and decrepit soldiers, two hundred seamen, a hundred and twenty artillerymen, and forty-five Corsicans, Greeks, Turks, Moors, and Jews marched out between two lines of fourteen thousand French and Spanish troops, and laid down their arms on the glacis of George Town, declaring 'they surrendered to God alone, as the victors could not plume themselves on taking a hospital' (ib.) After the return home of the troops Sir William Draper preferred a number of miscellaneous charges against Murray—twenty-nine in all—alleging waste of public money and stores, extortion, rapacity, cruelty, &c. Murray was tried by a general court-martial presided over by Sir George Howard, which sat at the Horse Guards in November-December 1782 and January 1783. Contemporary accounts of the trial describe Murray—'Old Minorca' he was nicknamed—as 'looking very broken, but with all the remains of a very stout man, and quite the old soldier.' The court fully and honourably acquitted Murray of all the charges preferred against him except two of trivial import—some interference with auction-dues in the island, and the issue of an order derogatory to his lieutenant-governor—for which it sentenced him to be reprimanded. On the proceedings being submitted to him, the king 'was pleased to approve of the zeal, courage, and firmness with which General Murray had conducted himself in the defence of Fort St. Philip, as well as of his former long and approved services.' The reprimand was dispensed with, and the king further expressed 'his concern that an officer like Sir William Draper should have allowed his judgment to become so perverted as to bring such charges against his superior. Lest some intemperate expressions of Draper should lead to a duel, the court dictated an apology to be signed by Draper, which, after some difficulty, was acquiesced in by Murray. Immediately afterwards a Mr. Sutherland brought an action against Murray for illegal suspension from the office of judge of the vice-admiralty court in Minorca. Murray had offered to reinstate Sutherland on his making a certain apology. The matter had been referred home, and the king had approved Murray's action; but a jury, the king's approval notwithstanding, found that Murray had acted arbitrarily and unreasonably, and gave damages against him to the amount of 5,000l. Baron Eyre declared that it never occurred to any lawyer to question the verdict (Term Reports, p. 538). On 6 May