ing after the capture of the Picurina fort. He opened the principal breaching batteries of the third siege, and on the fall of Badajos he was particularly mentioned by Wellington in his despatch. Robe was present in the advance against Marmont, at the affair of Sabugal, at the attack on the forts of Salamanca, and at the battle of Salamanca in July 1812. He commanded the royal artillery at the entry of the army into Madrid, at the surrender of the Retiro, and at the unsuccessful siege of Burgos, when for the third time he was mentioned in despatches. He was severely wounded in the retreat from Burgos, while defending the bridge at Cabeçon, near Valladolid. His wound necessitated his return to England; he was carried four hundred miles on men's shoulders to Lisbon.
Robe was promoted to be brevet colonel on 4 June 1814, and to be regimental colonel on 16 May 1815. For his services he received on 13 Sept. 1810 a medal for Roliça and Vimeiro; on 13 Sept. 1813 a cross bearing the names of Vimeiro, Talavera, Badajos, and Salamanca, superseding the medal previously bestowed, and on 3 July 1815 an additional clasp for Busaco. On 3 Jan. 1815 Robe was made a K.C.B., and was permitted from that date to wear the order of the Tower and Sword of Portugal, granted to him by the prince regent of Brazil on 12 Oct. 1812. He was also made a knight of the Hanoverian Guelphic order.
Robe died at Shooters Hill, near Woolwich, on 5 Nov. 1820, and was buried in the family vault in Plumstead churchyard. He married, about 1788, in Canada, Sarah (d. 4 Feb. 1831), daughter of Captain Thomas Watt of Quebec, and by her had five sons and four daughters.
The eldest son, William Livingstone Robe (1791–1815), born in 1791, became a cadet at the royal military academy at Woolwich on 9 April 1805, obtained a commission as second lieutenant in the royal horse artillery on 3 Oct. 1807, accompanied the expedition to Gottenberg the same year, and went to Gibraltar, whence he volunteered for service in Portugal, and joined his father during the battle of Vimeiro. He was promoted to be lieutenant on 28 June 1808. He took part in Sir John Moore's retreat to Coruña, was engaged at the Pombal, Sabugal, Fuentes d'Onore, El Boden, Badajos, Tarifa, Salamanca forts and battle, Madrid, Burgos, Nivelle, Nive, Adour, and Bayonne. He was in no fewer than thirty-three actions as a subaltern, and was mentioned by Wellington for his distinguished conduct at the battles of Nivelle and Nive, where he commanded a mountain battery of artillery carried on mules. He was one of the four officers of Ramsay's troop of horse artillery struck down near La Haye Sainte, at the battle of Waterloo, and died from the effects of his wounds on the following day, 19 June 1815, sending just before his death a message to his father to assure him that he died like a soldier. The gold medal, with clasps for the battles of Nivelle and Nive, was sent after his death to his family. His brother officers erected a monument to his memory in the church at Waterloo.
The second son, Alexander Watt, born in 1793, a lieutenant-colonel of royal engineers, died at St. John's, Newfoundland, on 2 April 1849, when serving there as commanding royal engineer. The third son, Thomas Congreve, born in 1799, a lieutenant-colonel royal artillery, died of yellow fever at Bermuda on 21 Sept. 1853, when in command of the royal artillery at that station. The fourth son, Frederick Holt (1800–1871), major-general and colonel of the 95th regiment of foot, was made a C.B. The fifth son, George Mountain Sewell (1802–1825), lieutenant 26th Bengal native infantry, served as adjutant in the Burmese war, and died on passage to Chittagong. The daughters were unmarried. The youngest, Vimiera, died in December 1893 at No. 4 The Common, Woolwich. She presented to the Royal Artillery Institution at Woolwich all the medals, orders, and decorations of her father and eldest brother, together with miniature portraits of each of them. These are displayed in the smoking-room in a case let into the wall.
[Royal Artillery Records; Despatches; Kane's List of Officers of the Royal Regiment of Artillery; Duncan's Hist. of the Royal Artillery; The Royal Military Cal.; Napier's Hist. of the War in the Peninsula and the South of France from 1807 to 1814.]
ROBERDEAU, JOHN PETER (1754–1815), dramatist, the son of a silk manufacturer in Spitalfields, was born in London in 1754. He was collaterally descended from Isaac Roberdeau (d. 1742), Huguenot refugee from Rochelle, who settled in St. Christopher's. The latter, by his wife, Mary Conyngham, of an old Scottish family, was father of General Daniel Roberdeau, who distinguished himself on the American side in the war of independence, and founded the American family of Roberdeau (see Buchanan, Genealogy of Roberdeau Family, Washington, 1876). John Peter Roberdeau gained a competence by trade, and, settling at Chichester about 1796, devoted himself to literary pursuits. From 1796 to 1799 he acted as resident commissary of army stores in Surrey
