BAIRD, General Sir David, Bart., was born at New-byth in Aberdeenshire, in December 1757. He entered the British army in 1773, and was sent to India with the 73d Highlanders in 1779. In the following year he had the misfortune to fall into the hands of Hyder Ali, in the Mysore chief’s perfidious attack on a handful of British troops at Perambucum. The prisoners, it is well known, were most barbarously treated. Baird survived his captivity; and on his release, visited his native country, but returned to India in 1791 as a lieutenant-coloneL When Harris marched against Tippoo Sahib, Baird, now a majorgeneral, served under him in that campaign; and when it was resolved to storm Seringapatam, he solicited and obtained the honour of leading the storming party to the breach. He made a daring assault, and was soon a master of the stronghold in which he had long been the prisoner. Through some misconception, Baird seems to have looked upon the temporary appointment of Colonel Wellesley to hold the captured town as permanently superseding him, and on this ground he judged himself to have been treated with injustice and disrespect. He afterwards received the thanks of the British Parliament and of the East India Company for his gallant bearing on that important day, and a pension was offered him by the Company, which he declined, apparently from the hope of receiving the order of the Bath from the Government. General Baird commanded the Indian army which was sent in 1801 to co-operate with Hutchinson in the expulsion of the French from Egypt. He landed at Kosseir, conducted his army to Keneh on the Nile, and thence to Rosetta, where he arrived just as the French were treating for the evacuation of Alexandria. On his return to India in 1802 he was employed against Scindia, but ...