Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 10.djvu/424
Clarke a
appeara from tlie 'Historical Manu-
BcriptB CommiiMion' (&tli I^. p. 'MS7 et etq.),
mber of his letters are amonir
��that a large n tbe Comwalli
Braybrooke'g family. lie was lientenant- Eiivemorof Che ialand ef Jamaica from ITtl^to TT90, anil acted as governor in 1 7H9. Clarke's namo appears as lieutenant-colooel of the ~th fusiliers up to H July 1791, when he was pro- moted to the colonelcy of the Ist, hattalion <10th foot. He had meanwhile been advanced to the rank of major-generel, and appointed to the staff at Quebec, where he was sta- tioned from June 1791 to June 1793. In a letter of this period in the ' Ualdimand Papers ' Clarke expresses regret that he had not been able to pass the winternith friends in England, ' after an absence from iiome of fifteen years.' On 5 Aug. 1791 he was trans- ferred to the colonelcy of the 08th foot, then at Gibraltar, and on 'JH Oct. following to his old corps, ^e Ath foot. In the following ytar he waa despatched, in commend of re- inforcements, to India. By preconcerted arrangement these troops were to co-operate with a naval force under Vice-admiral £1- phinstone, afterwards L«rd Keith, in an attach on t he Dutch settlements at the Cape of Good Hope. Admiral Elphinstone arrived in .Simon's Bay in July 1796, and had been engatted Jn operations apainst tlie enemy from that limn up to^SSfpf-.when the arrival of the reinforcements under Tlarke changed the face of allairs. Additional troops were landed, and on 14 Sept. the British iorce commenced ita march to Uapo Towii, and on the IKth the colony capitulated, wherehy th(> rule of the Dutch ICast India Company in South Africa waa determined, a change which, a Colonial- Dut^li writer (Judge Watermeycr) has ob- Hurviid, benefited every man of every hue throiijihout the colony (Noble, Itinfory of thf Capr, p. 20). Some weeks were sjient with the admiral, concocting measures for the administration of the new colony, a somewhat dif Kcult tnsl{ ( Allakhtce, Life of Kfilh), and then Clarke took hie reinforce- ments on lo Bengal, wlicre he served from that time (from 30 April 1797 aa presidency commander-in-chief and senior member of I the council) np to 17 May 1798, when he! succec<led Sir Jtobert Aliercromby [q. v.] as ' commander-in-chief in India. Hccommanded the army which accompanied Sir John Shore, afterwards Lord Teignmouth, to Lucknow, and wliich deposed the nabob Vizir Ali and plac<!d Saadut Ali on the throne of Dude. ' Clarke, who had been made K.B., held the post, of commandei^in-chiefundertbe Marquis i WellosleyuptoSl July 1801, when he arrived ; home, having left Fort William at the wid of i <
��6 Clarke
April. Notices of hitBerviceaandt^iiiiioiK ia India occur inddentaUy in the letton of Sir John Shore, in the publiahed d
��1 Shore, in the publiahed demlchea and ^pondence of the Harquia WelleaW, in the ' Momington Papers,' in die 'BritiBh Mu- seum Add. MSS.' — where there ia a Tolmne of letters from him to the Marquis Welleiln, with whom the general, a soUier of etmrtfy old-Euhioned type, appears to have been on cordial terms— and in Clarke's CTidence befine the parliamentary inquiry in t4) the conduct of Lord Wellesley m 1806. On 23 Aug. 1801 Clarke waa transferred to the colonelcy of the 7th fusiLers. He was afUirwards a member of the consolidated board of general officers. On the accession of William IV, Clarke and Sir Samuel Hulse, aa the two oldest generals inlhearmy,weremadefieldmarslia]s. Clarke died at Llangollen vicarage, where hewason a visit to his niece, Mrs. Peyton, wife of tbe incumbent, on 16 Sept. 1832, at the age of eighty-sevet).
[ArmyLiaLa; Allardyce'sLife of Keith (Edin- burgh, 1882); Miles and Codswell'a Indiaa Army Lists; Mill's Hist, of India, vi. 60-2SS; ABialic Annnal Ki^ster, 1808 ; Hsldimand and MoniiDgton Papers in Add. MSS., under ■Clarke, Alured;' Cathcart, Northumberland and Bray- brooke Papers in Hist, MSS. Coram. Reports, ii. 2ll-3(H?l, iii. 12o, and viii. 287, Ac. The biograpliicai nolicea of Sir A. Clarke ia Philli- pnrl's Royal Mil. Calondars, in Csnnon's Uist, Records Brit. Army, and inCent. M»g, c ii. pt. ii. 474. 662, are very moHgrfl and inconiplote.]
H. M. C. CLARKE, CHARLES (rf. 1760),
was the eon of Alured Clarke of Go
Chester in Huntingdonahire, by hiu aecond wife Anu, fourth daughter of the Itev. Charles Trimnell, rector of Riptoii-Abbotts in Hunt- ingdonshire, and sister to Bishop Trimnell of Winchester. He waa placed at Corpus Christi CoUege,Cambridge,in 17 l9underluB brother, Dr, Alured Clarke [q. T.l, then a fellow of that, college. Without taking any degree, he entered as a student of Lincoln's Inn in 1717, was called to the bar in 1723, and gained in time a large and very lucrative practice, so thai, he became able to rebuild the family house at Godmanchester. In 1731 he was appointed recorder of Huntingdon, and represented the countyin 1739. In the new parliament of 1741 he was elected for Whit- church in Hampshire, but in its second session in Hilary term, 1743, was raised to the bench of the exchequer in place of Sir Thomas Abney (d. 1750) [q. v.], but waa not knighted. At this time he waa counsel to the admiralty, and auditor of Greenwich Hospital, in which vost he was succeeded byMr. Heneage Legge. n 17 May 1750 he died of a fever contrvcted
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