Page:Viscount Hardinge and the Advance of the British Dominions into the Punjab.djvu/14

10 grown with ivy and other creepers. The estate had been sold in 1796 to Lord Melbourne, and has now passed into the possession of Lord Cowper.

Lord Hardinge was born at Wrotham, in Kent, on 30th March, 1785. He was the third son of the Rev. Henry Hardinge, rector of Stanhope, in Durham, by his marriage with Frances, daughter of James Best of Park House, Boxley, Kent.

The eldest son, Charles, succeeded to the baronetcy which had been conferred upon his uncle. Sir Richard Hardinge of Lurran, County Fermanagh, with remainder to his heirs general. Sir Charles sold the Irish estate and purchased Bounds Park in Kent. Having taken holy orders, he held the vicarage of Tunbridge from 1809 until his death in 1864.

The second son, George, distinguished himself highly in the Navy, until his career was cut short by an early death. In March, 1808, while cruising off the coast of Ceylon, in command of the 'San Fiorenzo' (36 guns and 186 men), he fell in with the 'Piédmontaise,' a French frigate carrying 50 guns and 566 men. She was boarded and captured, but Captain Hardinge fell mortally wounded at the very moment of victory. He was only in his twenty-seventh year. A monument was erected to his memory in St. Paul's by Parliament, and another of larger dimensions at Bombay, subscribed for by the merchants residing in that Presidency.

The youngest son, Richard, entered the Royal Artillery. Like his brother Henry, he saw service during