Lieutenant-General Alexander Adams (baptised 4 April 1772 – 12 September 1834) was a British army officer. He distinguished himself in the Second Anglo-Maratha War, serving with the 78th Highlanders in India. His commander, General Wellesley (later Duke of Wellington), thanked him for his services on several occasions. After the 1811 invasion of Java, he was appointed to a command in the army, and also as minister at the court of the emperor or Susuhunan Pakubuwono IV. Family Alexander Adams was born into an ancient landed Pembrokeshire family in Holyland, Pembrokeshire, the son of Major Joseph Adams and Elizabeth (née Campbell) Adams. Military service Gibraltar Adams originally joined the Queen's Royals as an ensign, and served in that regiment as a lieutenant and adjutant, or acting adjutant, for a considerable time, chiefly at Gibraltar, a period he remembered with much pleasure. India He joined the 78th Highlanders, not long after its formation, with the rank of captain. Around 1796, he was the paymaster of the regiment in Bengal. He trained the men using David Dundas's then little-known drill-book of 1788 as a guide and is credited with instilling a high degree of discipline. He was promoted to major and given command of the regiment at Fort William, Bengal, in 1801. During the Second Anglo-Maratha War of 1803, the 78th was sent via Bombay to Poona to join a division of the Madras Army commanded by Major-General Arthur Wellesley (later Duke of Wellington). Wellesley, by an extraordinary march, had saved the city from destruction. Adams distinguished himself at the successful escalade of the Pettah of Ahmednagar. During the heat of the action, the 78th, on the extreme left of the line and somewhat separated from it, had to charge a double column of regular infantry and artillery, while keeping a large body of cavalry in check on the left and, at the same time, being fired upon from the rear by their own guns. The 78th's guns, left behind by the necessity of closing quickly with the enemy, had been seized and turned against them by a party that had passed through the gap between the 78th and the rest of the brigade, along with some stragglers. Once the 78th had captured the enemy guns to its front, General Wellesley rode up and instructed Lieutenant-Colonel Adams to "face about, and drive those fellows from our guns", which was immediately done. In his