Accounts of the siege of Minorca

The volume begins with 12 pages of documents, transcribed in a contemporary hand, relating to the siege of Minorca. These are followed by 'The sentence of the court-martial...for the trial of the Hon. Lieut. Gen. James Murray...taken in shorthand by Joseph Gurney', 100 pages, printed in 1783. The remaining 12 pages are blank, except for the writing 'the evidence of the many witnesses brought forward in support of the prosecution of the preceding trial appeared to be so much the result of party spirit, that their promotion was stopped'.

General James Murray (1721-1794), son of the 4th Lord Elibank, a distinguished soldier and former Governor of Quebec, served as Governor of Minorca from 1774 until he capitulated to a French and Spanish force in 1782. He was court-martialled in 1782-1783 on 29 charges preferred by his second-in-command, but was cleared of all but two of them.

Unless restrictions apply, the collection is open for consultation by researchers using the Manuscripts Reading Room at Cambridge University Library. For further details on conditions governing access please contact mss@lib.cam.ac.uk. Information about opening hours and obtaining a Cambridge University Library reader's ticket is available from the Library's website (www.lib.cam.ac.uk).

The manuscript was originally part of a volume entitled 'Trial of General Murray', which included material relating to the loss of Tobago that now forms RCMS 267. The provenance of the volume prior to its receipt at the R.C.S. is unknown.

Includes index.

Case A63

MSS Addenda, vol. I.

A catalogue of the collection can be found on ArchiveSearch.

The documents on the first 10½ pages of the volume were published in the 'Annual register', 1782, pp. 241-247.

This collection level description was created by RAS using information from the original typescript catalogue.

Unknown