'Old Minorca; ' or, General Murray of the Scots Fusiliers by James Grant

It is strange that the life of this old officer has found no place in any biographical work; yet he was the successor of Wolfe at Quebec, and as such completed the conquest of Canada. He defended Minorca, and repelled with scorn De Crillon's offer of a million sterling to betray that post; and who, when an old lieutenant-general, was arraigned before a court-martial by the brilliant Sir William Draper, whom he signally baffled.

James Murray was the fifth son of Alexander, fourth Lord Elibank, who in 1698 married Elizabeth Stirling, daughter of a surgeon in Edinburgh. Following the example of his elder brother Patrick, who served as a colonel in the Carthagena Expedition under Lord Cathcart, he betook him to a military life, and on the 5th January, 1750-51, was lieutenant-colonel of the 15th Foot, then on the Irish Establishment (Millans' Lists). During five years subsequently his regiment was still serving in Ireland, and in 1757 he commanded in Sir John Mordaunt's expedition to Rochefort. On this service ten battalions of infantry sailed from the Isle of Wight on board eighteen ships of the line, attended by frigates, fire-ships, and bombketches, under Sir Edward Hawke and Admiral Knowles, on the 8th September, 'attended,' says Smollett, 'with the prayers of every man warmed with the love of his country and solicitous for her honour; ' but, like most of those buccaneering expeditions to the coast of France which disgraced the reigns of the two first Georges, it proved a failure.