New Spalding Club > House of Gordon > Gordons under arms

426 HOUSE OF GORDON.
him. I got his body carried off and interred. What things he had with him, as they are
perishable, I will sell by auction and account to you for the money. His watch I preserve for
you.
177 1, Dec. 28, Ha3''s account was retold by Harry Guthrie, writer, Edin-
burgh, to his father. Dr. Matthew Guthrie, in a letter from St. Petersburg
(letter in possession of Mrs. Walker) : —
He [Hay] tells me, that my friend was singled out and shot in consequence of wearing
on that unlucky day his English uniform, which distinguished him from the Russian troops,
whose cloathes are green. They found his body afterwards on the field of battle, but without
the head. The Turks had decapitated him after a brave resistance, which he had made upon
his knees, as is supposed from some terrible gashes with a scymitar, which was found upon his
body, and one of them under his right arm, which must have been made when his arm was
uplifted in defending himself. However, the very next day, the cowardly Turk who had per
petrated this inhuman act was killed in battle, and Gordon's sword recovered, and the plumed
reward of inhumanity pulled from his cap (this is a silver ornament with a stone in the middle
of it which the Bashaw, or Commander of the Army, gives for the head of an enemy of rank).
They imagined by my unfortunate friend's dress that he was an officer of distinction. A Turk
who deserted to the Russians informed them that the Turks said they had taken in that skir-
mish three pieces of cannon and the head of a Bashaw.
Second son of William, of Culvennan (1706-57), who was the fourth son
of Sir Alexander, 2nd bart. of Earlston ; got the estate of Threavegrange,
Kirkcudbrightshire : entered the 67th Ft., 1767 (see 398) ; educated at " Edin-
burgh College"; 1769, Jan.-Jun., studied reading, fencing and military
engineering at Geneva under an old Prussian officer, named Puseelle ; then
went to Italy. 1771, Mar., in London, from which he went to Russia.
Guthrie, in the letter quoted, says : —
The fate of this worthy young gentleman has greatly affected me. I contracted a
friendship for him here on his way to the army, we remembering one another at Edinburgh
College. He was much with me last summer before his setting out for the army. I found
him a most accomplished young gentleman. He had formed a plan to himself, and had been,
and was pursuing it, with a most manly perseverance. He came here from making a tour on
the Continent, and had not, like many of our modern travellers, been in search of pleasure,
but seem'd to have pick't up in every place what he could find relative to his profession.
Upon the whole, had he lived to return from this campaign against the infidels, I flatter
myself he would have proved an honour to his friends and his country.
Brother of Robert, 1202 (J- M. Bulloch on the Gordons of Culvennan,
Dumfries Courier, 1906, Aug. 25; The Gay Gordons, 138-145).
1693' Donald. 1794, Ens., Reg. van Nyvenheim, Scots Brigade
in Holland. 1794, Professor Kramer says he is entered as being born "in
Bumpshire" (Banffshire?) and aged 25. Ferguson (Scots Brigade, 11. 551)
mentions " D." Gordon, Ens., 7th Co., ist Battn., Reg. van Nyvenheim;