Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 27.djvu/328

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Hope
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Hope

commission as regius professor of medicine and botany. He was soon afterwards elected a physician to the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, a post which he held till his death. The medical botanical garden (where the Waverley station is now) was swampy and unsuitable, and he caused it to be exchanged in 1776 for one to the west of Leith Walk, where he arranged the plants according to the Linnean system. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of London, was highly appreciated by Linnæus, who named the genus Hopea after him; he was president of the Edinburgh College of Physicians when he died on 10 Nov. 1786, aged 61. He married Juliana, daughter of Dr. Stevenson, physician, of Edinburgh, by whom he left four sons and one daughter. His third son, Thomas Charles Hope, is noticed separately.

Hope was an enthusiastic admirer of Linnæus, and put up at his own expense an imposing monument to him in the Edinburgh botanical gardens. He published Alston's lectures on materia medica in two quarto volumes in 1770, and edited Linnæus's ‘Genera Animalium’ in 1781.

[Duncan's Memoir of Hope; Harveian Oration at Edinburgh, 1788; Kay's Edinburgh Portraits, ii. 415; Grant's Story of Edinburgh University, i. 318, ii. 382.]

G. T. B.

HOPE, JOHN, fourth Earl of Hopetoun (1765–1823), general, son of John Hope, second earl, by his second wife, Jane, daughter of Robert Oliphant of Rossie, Perthshire, and elder half-brother of Generals Sir Alexander Hope [q. v.] and Charles Hope (d. 1825), was born at Hopetoun House, Abercorn parish, Linlithgowshire, 17 Aug. 1765. He was educated at home, and travelled on the continent with his brother Alexander in charge of their tutor, Dr. John Gillies (1747–1836) [q. v.], afterwards historiographer royal for Scotland. He is stated to have served for a short time as a volunteer. He was appointed cornet 10th light dragoons (now hussars) 28 May 1784, became lieutenant 100th foot, and afterwards in 27th Inniskillings, captain 17th light dragoons (now lancers) in 1789, major 1st royals foot 1792, and lieutenant-colonel 25th foot 26 April 1793. He was returned to parliament for Linlithgowshire in 1790, and again in 1796 (Foster, Members of Parl. for Scotland, p. 186). When the Mediterranean and Channel fleets under Lords Hood and Howe put to sea in April-July 1793, the 25th foot was one of the regiments sent on board by detachments to supply the want of marines. Hope remained on shore with the headquarters at Plymouth until December 1794, by which time the regiment had been augmented to two battalions by the drafting of independent companies into it. On 9 Feb. 1795 he sailed in command of ten companies of the regiment for the West Indies, and on reaching Grenada on 30 March was invalided home (Higgins, Hist. 25th K. O. Borderers). He returned to the West Indies in 1796 as adjutant-general to the troops under Sir Ralph Abercromby. He was present at the reduction of the French and Spanish West Indian Islands in 1796–7, and was repeatedly commended by Abercromby and other general officers. He returned home in 1797. In August 1799 he was deputy adjutant-general of the advanced force sent to North Holland under Sir Ralph Abercromby [q. v.], but received a severe wound in the ankle on landing, and was sent home. On 27 Aug. 1799 he was promoted from the 25th foot to colonel of the North Lowland Fencible Infantry (raised in 1794 and disbanded in 1802). At the end of September he returned to Holland as adjutant-general of the main body of the expeditionary force under the Duke of York; was present in the actions of 2 and 8 Oct. 1799, and was one of the officers deputed to arrange the convention of Alkmaar. He was adjutant-general to Sir Ralph Abercromby in the Mediterranean in 1800, and in the expedition to Egypt, where at the great battle of 21 March 1801, before Alexandria, when Abercromby fell, he received a severe wound. On his recovery he asked for a brigade, and was appointed to one composed of two of the most distinguished regiments with the army, the 28th foot and 42nd highlanders, at the head of which he joined the army before Cairo, and was deputed by General Hutchinson to arrange the terms of surrender of the French army there. He was afterwards sent into Alexandria for the like purpose. He became a major-general in 1803, commanded a brigade in the eastern district of England under Sir J. H. Craig during the invasion alarms of 1803–5, and in 1805 was appointed lieutenant-governor of Portsmouth, a post he resigned the same year to join the expedition to Hanover under Lord Cathcart. He became a lieutenant-general in 1808, was second in command of the troops sent to Sweden under Sir John Moore, and in August the same year landed in Portugal. He was in command at Lisbon at the time of the French evacuation of the city, and had the difficult task of restraining the Portuguese populace from acts of violence against the invaders. When Moore advanced into Spain, Hope commanded one of the two divisions of the army. Moving in the direction of the Tagus, after some very critical operations, he joined Moore at Salamanca,