Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Auchmuty, Robert

AUCHMUTY, Robert (ok-mu'-te), lawyer, b. in Scotland; d. in Boston, Mass., in April, 1750. He was descended from a family settled in Fife, Scotland, in the 14th century. His father removed to Ireland in 1699, and the son emigrated to America and settled in Boston, where he practised law with success. He was appointed to the court of admiralty in 1703, which office he resigned shortly afterward; but he was reappointed in 1733. He was in England in 1741 as agent for the colony, and in that year published in London a pamphlet entitled “The Importance of Cape Breton to the British Nation, and a Plan for Taking the Place.” — His son, Robert, b. in Boston; d. in Marylebone, England, in December, 1788. He was an eloquent and successful advocate in Boston, was one of the counsel for the soldiers engaged in the Boston massacre, and became a judge of admiralty in 1769, but in 1776, being a zealous Loyalist, withdrew to England. His and Hutchinson's letters from Boston, sent over by Franklin, in 1773, caused great excitement. — Another son, Samuel, clergyman, b. in Boston, 16 Jan., 1722; d. in New York, 6 March, 1777, was graduated at Harvard in 1742, studied theology in England, and was appointed assistant minister of Trinity church in New York. In 1764 he became rector, and had charge of all the churches in the city. He continued to read prayers for the king during the revolution, until Lord Stirling, in command at New York, compelled him to desist; whereupon he locked the churches and withdrew to New Jersey, ordering that no services should be held until the prayers could be read without abridgment. When the British captured New York he passed the American lines amid great hardships. He found his church and parsonage burned and the church records destroyed. The exposure that he underwent in order to evade the American sentries caused his death. — Sir Samuel, British general, son of the Rev. Dr. Samuel, b. in New York, 22 June, 1758; d. in Dublin, Ireland, 11 Aug., 1822, was graduated at King's college in 1775, and volunteered in the British army in August, 1776; was commissioned for gallant conduct at the battle of Long Island, and served in three campaigns against the Americans. He obtained a captaincy, and served in India from 1783 to 1796. In 1800 he was adjutant-general in Abercrombie's Egyptian expedition, in 1803 was made a knight of the bath went in 1806 to South America as a brigadier-general, and in February, 1807, captured Montevideo. In 1810 he was in command in the Carnatic, and in 1811 he reduced Java. Returning to England in 1813, he was made a lieutenant-general, and in 1822 was appointed commander-in-chief in Ireland.