MEMOIR OF SIR THOMAS MAKDOUGALL BRISBANE. 593 
it, I merely did you justice; for I must beg leave to repeat, that I never saw so 
rapid an improvement on any corps during so short a period. I really consider the 
69th regiment in every respect as good a corps as any in the service; and I did 
not think it possible they could become so from the very bad state they were in, 
while under the command of the late lieutenant-colonel and senior captain.” 
A brother officer who served under Sir THomas in the West Indies, and who 
survives him, relates the following incident, which occurred during their passage 
home :—“ Unfortunately,” says he, “we embarked on board an unsound ship, 
and on our passage from St Vincent to St Kitts she foundered; but before she 
went down, a boat from the convoy ship arrived to save the lives on board; and 
as Colonel BrisBANE was in the act of stepping in from the sinking ship, with his 
nautical instruments in his hands, the leutenant in charge stopped him, and said . 
his captain had given him peremptory orders to take no baggage of any sort 
whatever ; he therefore could not allow these things to be put into the boat. 
Colonel BrisBANE immediately retraced his steps, desiring the lieutenant to give 
his respects to the captain, and to tell him that ‘before I part with these things 
I hold in my hands, I will go down with the ship.’ Honest Jack immediately 
replied, ‘ Step in, sir.’” 
On arriving in England with the 69th regiment, he was stationed at Col- 
chester; and so excellent had been the discipline of the regiment, that the 
mayor stated that the 69th was the only one which had left that place for a long - 
period without even a single soldier having been brought before a magistrate for 
any irregularity. 
In 1804, when the 69th regiment was ordered to India, Sir THomas retired on 
half-pay, as another campaign in a hot climate was deemed dangerous. During 
this period he occupied himself in erecting an observatory on his patrimonial 
estate at Brisbane, and furnishing it with instruments. This observatory is 
situated in Latitude 55° 49’ 6’ north, and in Longitude 4° 52’ west. It contained 
a transit instrument of 44 feet focal length, and an altitude and azimuth 
instrument by the celebrated Troughton; also a mural circle and equatorial 
instrument, a sidereal and two assistant clocks. With the exception of the 
observatory on Garnet Hill at Glasgow, it was, at the period of its erection, the 
only one in Scotland, and was much more complete in its equipment. A plate 
above the entrance bears the inscription, “‘ Ad Scientiam Astronomicam colendam 
extruxit T. Brissane, Anno Domini 1808.” 
In 1810 he was appointed assistant adjutant-general to the staff at Canter- 
bury, which he held until he obtained the command of a brigade under the Duke 
of Wellington, whom he joined at Coimbra in 1812. Sir THomas was received 
with the utmost kindness by the Duke, who said he had two brigades vacant for 
him,—one in the third and the other in the 7th division; the former commanded 
by his old friend Sir Thomas Picton, under whom he had served in the West 
VOL. XXII. PART III. 70 
