and cast anchor in the bay of Marmorice on 27 Dec. Here he waited six weeks, receiving some slight reinforcements, and discovering that the Turks were quite useless as allies. But while waiting he looked after his soldiers' health, and practised disembarkments until the whole force thoroughly understood how to promptly disembark, and every man knew his place in his boat. At last, giving up any hope of assistance from the Turks, he set sail from Marmorice Bay with 14,000 infantry, 1,000 cavalry, and 600 artillery. On 2 March he anchored in Aboukir Bay, and on 8 March effected a landing in force in a single day, thanks to former practice. The opposition of the French was vigorous enough to show Abercromby he had no mean enemy to encounter, and he decided to march slowly and cautiously to Alexandria. He had a couple of skirmishes on 13 and 18 March, and then heard that the French general Menou was coming out to attack him. On 21 March accordingly, the French made a violent attack, but without effect, owing to the splendid conduct of Moore and his division, who held the right, and more particularly of the 28th regiment. In the end Menou was beaten back with immense loss, including three generals killed, while the English loss was only 1,464 killed and wounded. Among the latter was Sir Ralph Abercromby, who, riding in front in his usual reckless manner, was wounded in the thigh by a musket-ball. He was carried to the Foudroyant, the flagship. ‘What is it you have placed under my head?’ asked the wounded general. ‘Only a soldier's blanket,’ answered the aide-de-camp, who afterwards became General Sir John Macdonald. ‘Only a soldier's blanket? Make haste and return it to him at once.’ When carried on board he seemed to rally, but the improvement did not last, and on 28 March he died on board the flagship. He was buried at Malta, where a simple monument was erected to his memory; a more enduring monument has remained in the peerage conferred upon his wife as Baroness Abercromby of Tullibody and Aboukir Bay; but the most enduring of all lies in his unstained honour as a soldier.
When Abercromby came to the front in the campaign in Flanders, England had not a single great or even tolerable general, unless we except Lord Cornwallis, and her army was in a terrible state of degeneration. When he died, after having served in every important campaign, he left many a worthy successor and an army second to none in everything but equipment. He formed a regular school of officers, of whom may be mentioned John Moore, John Hope and Robert Anstruther, and James Kempt, his adjutant-general, quartermaster-general, and military secretary in Egypt, Hildebrand Oakes, Thomas Graham, Rowland Hill, Cradock, Doyle, Edward Paget, and his own sons, John and Alexander Abercromby—as goodly a collection of officers as ever were formed by any general. It is more difficult to breathe the spirit of military prowess and military discipline into an army than to win a battle; and this is what Abercromby did. No wonder, then, that Moore and Hope for instance, probably his superiors in military ability, did not grudge giving him the credit for such victories as Morne Fortunée and Alexandria, which they really won, for they looked on him as the regenerator of the English army. No biography of Sir Ralph would be complete which did not notice his extreme short-sightedness, almost blindness, which made him depend for sight at different times on Moore, Kempt, and his son John, nor yet without noticing the singular sweetness and purity of his domestic life, which made all who came across him, from the Duke of York, whom he eclipsed, to Lord Camden, with whom he quarrelled, acknowledge the charm of his society.
Sir Ralph left four sons: 1. George Ralph, M.P. for Edinburgh and Clackmannan, who succeeded his mother as Lord Abercromby, 1821; 2. Lieutenant-general Sir John Abercromby, G.C.B.; 3. James, M.P. for Edinburgh, speaker, and first Lord Dunfermline; 4. Alexander, colonel, C.B., M.P., &c.
[The best authority for his life is a short Memoir of his Father by James, Lord Dunfermline, published in 1861; but there are also short biographies in Gleig's Eminent British Military Commanders, vol. iii., and the Royal Military Panorama, vol. iii.; for the campaigns in Flanders see, besides the despatches, Sir H. Calvert's Journal; for the West Indian campaigns see the supplement to Bryan Edwards's History of the West Indies, and the Naval Histories of Brenton and James; for the expedition to Egypt consult Moore's Life of Sir John Moore, the various contemporary journals and magazines, and more particularly Sir Robert Wilson's Expedition to Egypt.]
ABERCROMBY, ROBERT (1534–1613), a Scotch Jesuit, who, after entering the order, spent twenty-three years in assisting catholics abroad, and nineteen years on the Scotch mission, where he suffered imprisonment. Father Drew, in his ‘Fasti S. J.,’ states that Abercromby induced Anne of Denmark, queen of James I, to abjure Lutheranism, and to die in the profession the catholic faith. A reward of 10,000 crowns was offered for his apprehension; but he
