BERESFORD, WILLIAM CARR BERESFORD, VIS COUNT (1768-1854), British general and Portuguese marshal, illegitimate son of the first marquis of Waterford, was born on Oct. 2 1768. He entered the British army in 1785, and while in Nova Scotia with his regiment in the following year lost the sight of one eye by a shooting accident. He first distinguished himself at Toulon in 1793, receiving two years later the command of the 88th regiment (Connaught Rangers). He made his reputa tion under Sir David Baird in Egypt (1799-1803) and South Africa (1805) . From South Africa he was despatched to South America. He had little difficulty in capturing Buenos Aires with only a couple of regiments. But this force was wholly insufficient to hold the colony. Under the leadership of a French emigre, the chevalier de Tiniers, the colonists attacked Beresford, and at the end of three days' hard fighting he was compelled to capitulate. After six months' imprisonment he escaped, and reached England in 1807, and at the end of that year he was sent to Madeira, occupying the island in the name of the king of Portugal. After six months in Madeira as governor and commander-in-chief, he was ordered to join Sir Arthur Wellesley's army in Portugal. He was first employed as commandant in Lisbon, but accompanied Sir John Moore on the advance into Spain, and took a conspicuous part in the battle of Corunna (see PENINSULAR WAR). In Feb. 1809 Beresford was given the task of reorganizing the Portuguese army. In this task, by systematic weeding-out of inefficient officers and men, he succeeded beyond expectation. By the sum mer of 1810 he had so far improved the morale and discipline of the force that Wellington brigaded some of the Portuguese regi ments with English ones, and at Busaco Portuguese and English fought side by side.
In the spring of 1811 Wellington was compelled to detach Beresford from the Portuguese . service. The latter was next in seniority to Gen. (Lord) Hill, who had gone home on sick leave, and on him, therefore, the command of Hill's corps now devolved. Unfortunately Beresford never really gained the confidence of his new troops. At Campo Mayor his light cavalry brigade got out of hand, and a regiment of dragoons was practically annihilated. He invested Badajoz with insufficient forces, and on the advance of Soult he was compelled to raise the siege and offer battle at Albuera. His personal courage was even more than usually con spicuous, but to the initiative of a junior staff officer, Col. (after wards Viscount) Hardinge, rather than to Beresford's own general ship, was the hardly won victory to be attributed. Beresford then went back to his work of reorganizing the Portuguese army. He was present at the siege of Badajoz and at the battle of Sala manca, where he was severely wounded (1812). In 1813 he was present at the battle of Vitoria and at the battles of the Pyrenees, while at the battle of the Nivelle, the Nive and Orthez he com manded the British centre, and later he led a corps at the battle of Toulouse. At the close of the Peninsular War he was created Baron Beresford of Albuera and Cappoquin, with a pension of 12,000 a year, to be continued to his two successors.
In 181g the revolution in Portugal led to the dismissal of the British officers in the Portuguese service. In 1823 Beresford's barony was made a viscounty, and when the duke of Wellington formed his first cabinet in 1828 he gave Beresford the office of master-general of the ordnance. In 183o Beresford retired from politics, and for some time was occupied in a heated controversy with William Napier, the historian of the Peninsular War, who had severely criticized his tactics at Albuera. On this subject Wellington's opinion of Beresford is to the point. The duke had no illusions as to his being a great general, but he thought very highly of his powers of organization, and he went so far as to declare, during the Peninsular War, that, in the event of his own death, he would on this ground recommend Beresford to succeed him. The last years of Beresford's life were spent at Bedgebury, Kent. He died on Jan. 8 1854.