with him for this that he never lost sight of him from that day.' He had genuine loyalty in his disposition, and it is apparent in all his correspondence-a loyalty which means not a mere acknowledgment of and attachment to the sovereign, for this is the natural inheritance of every respectable member of the community, but in its higher and fuller sense a constant and faithful disposition to uphold constituted authority. Disloyalty was not unknown among our officers in the Peninsular war, who questioned and set at nought in estimation, if not in practice, all the plans of their leaders; and such disloyalty spreads now, like a noxious weed, through every rank and every profession in our country. In schools and in the church, among country yokels, and even in the Houses of Parliament, as well as in the services, authority is now contemued, and has difficulty to uphold its very existence. From the time

when Gomm was a subaltern in camp he was always prompt to render a willing and cheerful obedience to the powers that be, and was always truly and faithfully loyal. Further, note what a cultivated mind he had, so full of classical allusions, so appreciative of the highest forms of architecture and music and poetry, so well-informed on all points, so good a linguist—and yet his schooling was in days we are apt to consider the dark ages of education, and he left school before he was fifteen years old, and was from that day in camp and on duty. It is true, and this perhaps is the secret, that though an orphan, he was lovingly and tenderly brought up; he never lost any opportunity, whether in home cantonment or on foreign and active service, of trying to improve himself; he read the best books, and made careful criticisms on them; he associated with and always seems to have been a favourite in the best society, wherever he was. Add to this that he was a singularly pure-minded and religious. man, and we have a picture of what from his earliest days, as far as we can judge from his writings, Sir William Gomm

1 Disloyal persons were thus described many centuries ago by a sacred writer: "They despise government; presumptuous are they, self-willed; they are not afraid to speak evil of dignities.'

seems to have been, and of what we certainly know him to have been in later years-a perfect English gentleman.

And it was to an officer's feeling as a gentleman first, and as a soldier afterwards, that Sir William Gomm, when he himself came to power, used always to appeal whenever he had to reprimand; and this is in entire accordance with the anecdote told of the Duke of Wellington at page 373. We have a good specimen of this style of dealing on an occasion when, as Commander-in-Chief in India, he had to prohibit the practice of anonymous newspaper correspondence. The following is from a circular letter addressed to commanding officers from the Adjutant-General's Office in Simla, 1853:

The Commander-in-Chief in India noticed some time ago in the "Lahore Chronicle" a very unbecoming anonymous letter, apparently emanating from a Queen's regiment, and full of murmurs at the prospect of a move.

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2. Distressed as his Excellency was to suppose that any officer of that corps could so far have forgotten what is due to his service, his regiment, and himself, as to have written this letter, the Commander-in-Chief abstained from inquiry; but a few weeks later another letter appeared in the "Delhi Gazette," written in the name of another regiment, and also anonymous. This second letter was still more improper and unsoldierlike than the first, and personally insulting to the Commander-in-Chief.

3. His Excellency, not as General Sir William Gomm, but as Commander-in-Chief in India, responsible for the discipline and character of her Majesty's service in this country, felt that he could no longer be passive, and directed inquiry to be made.

4. The result is that a captain in the service, with becoming contrition, at once confessed himself to be the author of the letter.

5. In consequence of this candid and prompt avowal, the Commander-in-Chief has overlooked the particular offence, but his Excellency feels it his duty to put the officers of the Queen's service upon their guard.

6. From the unmilitary practice of anonymous writing in the newspapers, and the still more blamable practice of anonymous complaints, her Majesty's service has hitherto been supposed to be free.

7. It is hardly necessary to dwell upon the pernicious example which an officer who is inconsiderately drawn into a compliance with such practices thus sets to his own subordiNo reflecting member of the profession can deny that such example tends to sap the foundation of all discipline.

nates.

'8. You are requested, therefore, to read this communication to the assembled officers of the regiment under your command, and repeat to them an aphorism of the great Duke of Wellington, which was quoted by Sir William Gomm as his only reprimand to the author of the second letter herein mentioned:

"To write an anonymous letter is the meanest action of which any man can be guilty."

CHAPTER II.

1794-1799.

PARENTAGE-FIRST COMMISSION--WOOLWICH JOINS 9TH REGIMENTEXPEDITION TO THE HELDER-BATTLE OF BERGEN.

FROM a manuscript memoir of his family drawn out by Sir William Gomm in 1834, it appears that the Gomms were an Oxfordshire family, and that his great-grandfather, William Gomm, who died at Nethercote in 1780, had considerable estates there. His second son (Sir William's grandfather), William, resided in Russia, marrying a Russian lady of good family; he embarked in very large commercial enterprises, constructing the port of Onega in the White Sea, and opening an extensive commerce and navigation in a previously obscure and unproductive corner of the Russian empire. The contracts made by the Czar Peter were, however, perfidiously broken by his successor, and Mr. Gomm's enterprise was ruined. He was then appointed secretary to the embassy, first at the court of St. Petersburg, and then at the Hague, by his friend Sir James Harris, afterwards Lord Malmesbury.

His eldest son, William (Sir William Gomm's father), entered the army, and served with distinction through the American and West Indian wars from 1776 to 1794. While in the West Indies, he married, in 1782, Mary Alleyne Maynard, whose family resided in Barbadoes and had large estates there. He was an officer of great merit and distinction, and was frequently mentioned in the despatches of the time. He was wounded at the battle of St. Lucie in 1779, and the following interesting mention of the circumstance is found among his son's papers:-

I remember, while aide-de-camp at Liverpool to one of my father's truest and worthiest friends, General Benson, in the year 1801, entering the reading-room of the Athenæum, and carelessly taking up a volume of the Gentleman's Magazine of the year 1793, and running my eye for a few moments over its pages without any definite object, my attention being on a sudden fixed by the following anecdote. It will be found at page 880 of that year:

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While I extol the bravery of the Guards, let the Line have the merit due to them, which, at least, I will say nothing can exceed. As a single instance I must just mention a spirited reply of an officer, in the West Indies last war, to Sir William Medows. Captain G, of the 55th Regiment, being wounded in the eye at the taking of St. Lucia, Sir William, passing by in the heat of action, just stopped to regret his misfortune. Do not mind me, sir,' says he. 'I have one eye left, with which I hope to see you beat the French army.' Such a speech, made by one in ex-. cruciating pain, deserves to be recorded."

"The blank following the initial to the name I was happily at no loss to fill up, and busied myself, con amore, in copying off the passage. The pleasurable feeling of a youth of sixteen, excited by accidentally stumbling upon such a memento, will be easily understood.'

The esteem in which he was held by his superiors may be appreciated from the following letter from Sir Charles Grey to Lord Amherst :

Sir Charles Grey to Lord Amherst.

'Fort Bourbon: March 25, 1794. 'SIR, I have another recommendation to offer, to which I solicit your Lordship's attention most earnestly, being the particular situation of Major William Gomm, of the 55th Regiment, who was put in orders at Barbadoes by the Honourable MajorGeneral Bruce on June 20, 1793, as lieutenant-colonel commandant of a corps of French emigrants, and did duty as such, but has never been confirmed at home.