iforoottø Шйхпш Sir Ralph Abercromby.

y fjhHIS distinguished P>ritish gñneral, whose «4 name stands most deservedly amongst fche } highesfc of those of the many heroes who, in any time, have lived and died for their country, was a Soot, of an ancient but some- What decayed bouse in the shires of Fife, Banff, and Clackmannan, and war, the eldest son of a cadet of that family, George Abercromby, of Tillybody, in the county lam, named, by Mary, daughter of Ralph Dundas, of Manoor. The date of ids birth hai? been differently given. Most accounts, probably founded on one and the same authority, fixitat Ш8 but the in !

y, Ш8, in¬ scription on his tomb, in the Island οι Malta, informs us that be wa« born in 1733. The latter, though technically better evi¬ dence, is probably mis¬ taken ; for it is much more likely that a yonng man destined to any, more particularly the military profession, should enter it at the age of eighteen than at that of twenty-three, and, an a matter of fact, be received his first commission, a cornetcy in the Second Regiment of Dragoon Guards, on the 2!kd of May, !750. He was educated at Rugby, and at the University of Edin- burgh, afterwards study¬ ing at Leipsig. After receiving his commission ho was sent to Germany, where he served a sbrrt time, proceeding from the Continent to Ireland, where he served for some twenty years. On the 24th April, 1762,ФЬе obtained a troop in the Third Regiment of Dragoons. Passing throngh the usual degrees of rank to that of colonel, be was appointed, on the 3rd of November, 1781, to tho command of the 103rd, or Bang's regi¬ ment of Irish infantry, and became a major ¡»onerai on September 28,1787.