These are mounted officer figures from two Perry First Carlist War packs - two are from pack ISA37 (British Auxiliary Legion staff) and the third, on the grey, is a Spanish colonel from ISA2. These aren't supposed to represent any particular people; they are just generic figures to use as brigade commanders. The Duke of Wellington and the army command in general were opposed to officers on half-pay heading off, in effect, to act as mercenaries in a Spanish war. So the commander of the British Legion, George de Lacy Evans, had to look to his army friends and soldiers in India to fill his senior appointments.
Two of de Lacy Evans' friends who were given brigadier-general rank were Charles Chichester and William Reid, who otherwise had very little to do. Chichester went on to command the 81st Foot in 1839 and died in 1847, apparently with a reputation as the best regimental commanding officer in the British army. Reid became governor of Bermuda 1839 and of Malta in 1851. Another brigadier was Duncan MacDougall, who had fought in most of the major battles of the Peninsular War and then in the War of 1812, in which he served as an ADC to Major-General Robert Ross and then Sir Edward Packenham after Ross was killed (Packenham was himself killed trying to rally his troops at the Battle of New Orleans in January 1815). He was colonel of the 79th Highlanders when he resigned in March 1835 to join the BAL as its quarter-master general. However, disagreements with de Lacy Evans over strategy led to MacDougall leaving the BAL a year later and resigning from the British army at the same time. When the UK's national militia was revived in 1852, MacDougall formed the Royal Lancashire Militia Artillery, which eventually became part of the Royal Garrison Artillery. I thought these thumbnail biographies are useful in showing that despite the original reservations of the likes of Wellington, service in the BAL does not seem to have had a particularly negative effect on the careers of its officers.
3 figures. Painted August 2021.
