Did any British soldiers survive both the Battle of New Orleans and The Battle of Waterloo?

QUESTION Did British soldiers survive both the Battle of New Orleans and the Battle of Waterloo?

A famous example of this was Sir Henry George Wakelyn Smith (1787-1860), better known as Harry Smith. It is impossible to do justice to his life here or even to go through all the battles in which he was involved, but the following should provide a flavor.

Smith was born in Whittlesey, Isle of Ely, Cambridgeshire. He was commissioned in the elite 95th Rifles in 1805. His first active service was in South America in 1806. He distinguished himself at the Battle of Montevideo in 1807, but first came to real prominence during the Peninsular War.

Short, wiry, elegant and highly intelligent, he spoke fluent Spanish and became indispensable to Lieutenant General John Moore from October 1808 to January 1809 during the campaign that ended in the evacuation of the British army at Corunna.

In July 1809 he joined the army of Sir Arthur Wellesley (later the Duke of Wellington), and served throughout the Peninsular War until the final battle of Toulouse, in April 1814, which precipitated Napoleon’s abdication. Smith distinguished himself at the capture of Badajoz (April 6, 1812), where, after a fierce battle, the British succeeded in entering the heavily fortified city.

In May 1814, Smith was appointed assistant adjutant general of the force sent to continue the war against the US in the War of 1812 (which ended in 1814). On August 24 he fought at the Battle of Bladensburg where, in his own words, ‘…we licked the Yankees and took all their guns and we entered Washington with the barbarous purpose of destroying the city’… He was therefore attended the infamous White House fire, which horrified him.

Smith accompanied Sir Edward Pakenham’s force, sent to conquer New Orleans. It was a disaster. On January 8, 1815, Pakenham was killed and the attack was repulsed with heavy losses by an American army under General Andrew Jackson. Smith was sent to negotiate a two-day truce, to bury the dead and help the wounded. He returned to England in time to participate as brigade major to General Lambert in the battle of Waterloo on June 18, 1815.

Despite all this, Harry Smith is perhaps more famous for his love story. The day after the storming of Badajoz, a noble Spanish lady, whose property had been destroyed, presented herself at the British lines and sought protection from the ravages of the soldiers for herself and her sister, 14-year-old Juana Maria de Los Dolores. de Leon.

Smith fell in love and married Juana a few days later. She accompanied him throughout the war and they had a lifelong love affair. In 1847 Smith became governor of the Cape Colony and high commissioner, with the local rank of lieutenant general. His Spanish wife is remembered to this day by the name Ladysmith.

James O’Henry, London N11.

A palm oil plantation in North Sumatra, Indonesia. Parts of tropical forest and other ecosystems with high conservation values ​​have been cleared to make way for monoculture oil palm plantations. This has destroyed crucial habitats for many endangered species, including the Sumatran tigers

QUESTION What is the most environmentally destructive crop?

Palm oil is a vegetable oil extracted from the fruit that grows on the African oil palm and is found in most processed foods and many cosmetics.

Parts of tropical forest and other ecosystems with high conservation values ​​have been cleared to make way for monoculture oil palm plantations. This has destroyed crucial habitats for many endangered species, including pygmy elephants and Sumatran rhinos and tigers. Oil palm plantations cover more than 27 million hectares of the Earth’s surface.

Much of the rainforest in Indonesia and Malaysia has been replaced by oil palms. The best-known victim is the orangutan, whose wild population has declined by about 50 percent (more than 100,000 animals) in the past ten years.

The drainage required for oil palm cultivation causes peat oxidation and the release of carbon dioxide, and makes the soil more susceptible to fires and flooding.

An attempt has been made to replace these oils with substitutes, such as soybean oil. But soy yields less oil per hectare than palm oil and requires more fertilizers, pesticides and energy input per hectare. A large part of production takes place in Latin America. Soy cultivation has already had an impact on bird populations in Brazil and Argentina.

Penelope Noble, Manchester.

Pierce Brosnan played the role of Robinson Crusoe in the 1997 adaptation of Daniel Defoe’s famous book. Defoe’s involvement in espionage was directly related to the 1707 Act of Union between England and Scotland

QUESTION Was Daniel Defoe – author of Robinson Crusoe – a spy?

Daniel Defoe was born Daniel Foe in 1660 at a time of great unrest in Europe. His first famous work of fiction, Robinson Crusoe, was not published until 1719, when he was 59. He was involved in trade and statecraft across the continent. He began a career in business and added the prefix ‘de’ to his surname, to give it a more aristocratic sound.

Defoe was raised as a Presbyterian and had dissenting views. He was involved in the Monmouth Rebellion of 1685, which tried unsuccessfully to overthrow the new Catholic King James II. With the outbreak of the Glorious Revolution in 1688, he supported the cause of the Protestant King William III.

Defoe’s involvement in espionage was directly related to the 1707 Act of Union between England and Scotland. Robert Harley, Secretary of State for the Northern Department, was given the task of steering the union with Scotland under Queen Anne. He used Defoe as a pamphleteer and spy.

Defoe traveled to Scotland under the guise of writing The History Of The Union of Great Britain. Its mission was to monitor public and private sentiments regarding the proposed Union. Publicly, Defoe engaged in promoting the Union through ghost-written speeches, essays and pamphlets, despite being prosecuted and charged for a satirical suggestion that nonconformists should be murdered.

Defoe died in 1731, probably while in hiding from his creditors.

Mark Courtney, Pateley Bridge, North Yorks.