Page:Biographia Hibernica volume 1.djvu/377

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366
CALDWELL.

various documents from the lord-lieutenant and other officers of the king. His majesty, in recompence of his services, bestowed upon him in custodiam, for seven years the whole of the forfeited Bagnal estate, then let for 8000l. per annum; at the end of which time it was to be restored to the Bagnal family, and Sir James was to be otherwise provided for. He died in 1717.



HUME CALDWELL,

Who in the compass of a very short life, obtained more military glory than has fallen to the lot of most individuals who have embraced the profession of arms, was the third son of Sir John Caldwell, of Castle Caldwell, and great grandson of the subject of the preceding article. Possessed of all those warm and generous feelings so peculiar to the Irish, blended with a share of that uncalculating ardour of mind, more honourable than profitable, which has also been considered their characteristic, he rose deservedly and rapidly to high military honours.

He was born in the year 1735, and being intended for the university, was instructed in the Latin and Greek languages, under a private tutor, till he was about fourteen years of age, at which time he had made considerable progress in both.

His brother, Sir James, having distinguished himself in the army of the Empress Queen, to whose notice he had thus recommended himself, she made him an offer of taking one of his brothers into her service, which he accepted in favour of Hume, who was therefore placed in a French academy at Dublin, to learn the modern language and mathematics. Here, being, though so young, troubled with some symptoms of the gout, he gave a specimen of that firmness and self-denial which were his characteristics, by abstaining, at the recommendation of his masters from animal food and fermented liquors, and during a year that he remained there, was never known to depart once from this rule.