92 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
dom in a silver snuff-box. In October of the same year, he had the freedom of
the city conferred upon him by the magistrates, at the same time with the
Right Honourable the Earl of Hopetoun, and two brothers of that nobleman,
John and Alexander Hope.
During the Colonel’s stay in Edinburgh, Mr. Kay mentions that he was much
beloved by all who knew him. He adds, “The Colonel is also a great player
at cricket, a game of which he was very fond, and at which he used to amuse
himself with the common soldiers-a degree of condescension, which, together
with the drink-money he gave them on such occasions, made them all very fond
of him.”
Colonel Lennox served afterwards in the Leeward Islands, and arrived in
St. Doming0 from Martinique with eight flank companies of foot, on the 8th
June 1794, just at the breaking out of that pestilential disease, the yellow fever,
to which forty officers and six hundred rank and file fell victims in two months.
In 1795 he was appointed aid-de-camp to the King, with the rank of Colonel
in the Army, and had the rank of Major-General conferred upon him in 1795.
In 1800 he was made Colonel-Commandant of the 35th foot, and farther promoted
to be Colonel of the same regiment in May 1803. He attained the rank
of Lieutenant-General in 1805.
At the general election in 1790, he was returned Member of Parliament for
the County of Sussex; at the next election, six years afterwards, he was re-chosen,
and again in 1802 and 1806, immediately after which, on the death of his
uncle, he succeeded to the Dukedom of Richmond and Lennox. On the first
of April 1807, his grace was sworn a Privy Councillor, and appointed Lord-
Lieutenant of Ireland. He was afterwards made Governor of Canada, where
he died in 181 9, and was succeeded in his titles by his son Charles,-the second
of a family of fourteen, the eldest being a daughter.
No. XL.
COLONEL HUNTER.
THIS gentleman was much above the ordinary height, and exceedingly corpulent.
It is said that
when the Colonel accompanied his regiment to the West Indies-a climate
proverbially fatal to Europeans-upon his arrival there, while superintending
the disembarkation of the regimental stores, he was much annoyed by a person
walking round and round him, and staring uncommonly at him. Surprised at
this singular surveillance, the Colonel asked what he wanted, when the fellow
very gravely replied, “ I am just wondering, sir, if I have a coffin large enough
for you.” This hint was not lost ; the Colonel took the earliest opportunity of
disappointing the speculative undertaker, by returning to his native country.
He was brother of Sir James Hunter Blab, Baronet.