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The Lord Amherst 29 January 1717–3 August 1797 Portrait by Joshua Reynolds, 1765 Place of birth Sevenoaks, Kent, Kingdom of Great Britain Place of death Sevenoaks, Kent, Kingdom of Great Britain Allegiance Kingdom of Great Britain Service/branch British Army Years of service 1731–1795 Rank Commander-in-Chief of the Forces Battles/wars War of the Austrian Succession Battle of Dettingen Battle of Fontenoy Battle of Lauffeld Second Jacobite Rising Seven Years' War Battle of Hastenbeck Siege of Louisbourg Battle of Ticonderoga Battle of the Thousand Islands Fall of Montreal Pontiac's Rebellion Awards KB Other work Crown Governor of Virginia Governor General of British North America

Seven Years' War in North America: The French and Indian War Jumonville Glen – Fort Necessity – Fort Beauséjour – Monongahela – Petitcodiac – Lake George – Fort Bull – Sideling Hill – Great Cacapon – Fort Oswego – Kittanning – 1st Snowshoes – Sabbath Day Point – Fort William Henry – Louisbourg (1757) – Bloody Creek – German Flatts – 2nd Snowshoes – Louisbourg (1758) – Fort Carillon – Fort Frontenac – Fort Duquesne – Fort Ligonier – La Belle-Famille – Fort Niagara – Fort Ticonderoga – Beauport – Quebec – St. Francis – Sainte-Foy – Restigouche – Thousand Islands – Signal Hill

Field Marshal Jeffery Amherst, 1st Baron Amherst KB (sometimes spelled Geoffrey, or Jeffrey, he himself spelled his name as Jeffery) (29 January, 1717 – 3 August, 1797) served as an officer in the British Army and as Commander-in-Chief of the Forces.

Amherst is best known as one of the victors of the French and Indian War, when he conquered Louisbourg, Quebec City and Montreal. He was also the first British Governor General in the territories that eventually became Canada. Numerous places and streets are named for him, both in Canada and the United States.

Early life

Jeffery Amherst was born in Sevenoaks, England on 29 January 1717, into a family of lawyers^[1] From an early age he received the patronage of the Duke of Dorset. Amherst became a soldier in 1735 when he became an Ensign in the Grenadier Guards.^[2]

From 1741 he served in the War of the Austrian Succession. His regiment was part of the British force sent to protect the Austrian Netherlands in 1741. He became an aide to General John Ligonier the following year. As a staff officer he participated in the Battle of Dettingen in 1743 and the Battle of Fontenoy. ^[3]Along with much of the army in Flanders, he was recalled to Britain during the Jacobite Rebellion in 1745. Returning to the continent he was given a prestigious post as an aide to the Duke of Cumberland, the commander of the British forces and saw further action.

Seven Years' War

Germany

In February 1756 Amherst was appointed commissariat to the Hessian forces that had been assembled to defend Hanover as part of the Army of Observation. As it appeared likely a French invasion attempt against Britain itself was imminent, Amherst was ordered in April to arrange the transportation of thousands of the Germans to southern England to bolster Britain's defences^[4] By 1757 as the immediate danger to Britain had passed the troops were moved back to Hanover to join a growing army under the Duke of Cumberland. Amherst fought with the Hessians at the Battle of Hastenbeck in July 1757. The Allied defeat there forced the army into a steady retreat northwards to Stade on the North Sea coast.^[5]

Amherst was left dispirited by the retreat and by the Convention of Klosterzeven by which Hanover agreed to withdraw from the war. He began to prepare to disband the Hessian troops under is command, only to receive word that the Convention had been repudiated and the Allied force was being reformed.^[6] Amherst was in Stade preparing to retake the offensive under the army's new commander Duke Ferdinand of Brunswick when he received word summoning him back to England.

Louisbourg

Amherst gained fame during the Seven Years' War, particularly in the North American campaign known in the United States as the French and Indian War. After he served in Europe in 1757, Amherst led the British attack on Louisbourg in 1758. Amherst judged that the year was too advanced for him to attempt attacks on either Quebec or New Orleans and returned to Britain.

In the wake of this he was promoted to become commander-in-chief of the British army in North America, and led the successful British conquest of New France. In 1759, while James Wolfe besieged and eventually captured Quebec with one army, Amherst led another army against French troops on Lake Champlain, where he captured Fort Ticonderoga against little resistance but found his further advance frustrated and he had to delay any further move on Montreal until the following year.

Montreal

On September 8, 1760, he led an army down the Saint Lawrence River from Lake Ontario, and captured Montreal, ending French rule in North America. He infuriated the French commanders by refusing them the "honours of war" (the ceremonial right of a defeated garrison to retain their flags); the Knight of Lévis burned the colors rather than surrendering them. Amherst held the position of military governor of Canada from 1760 to 1763. He oversaw the dispatch of troops to take part in British expeditions in the West Indies that led to the British capturing Dominica in 1761 and Martinique and Cuba in 1762.

Pontiac's Rebellion

The hostility between the British and Native Americans after the French and Indian War led to one of the first documented attempts at biological warfare in North American history.^[7] In response to the 1763 uprising known as Pontiac's Rebellion, Colonel Henry Bouquet wrote to Amherst, his commanding officer, with the suggestion that the British distribute smallpox-infected blankets to Indians. Amherst approved the plan and expressed his willingness to adopt any "other method that can serve to Extirpate this Execrable Race."^[8] In fact, the commander at Fort Pitt had already attempted this very tactic in June 1763. It is the only recorded case of British soldiers giving smallpox-contaminated blankets to Native Americans.^[9]

Political career

Jeffrey Amherst, 1st Baron Amherst, by Thomas Gainsborough, circa 1785

Amherst served as the nominal Crown Governor of Virginia from 1759-1768, though Francis Fauquier continued his role as acting governor from the previous term. During this period he also served as the first Governor General of British North America from 1760 to 1763. This office still exists as the Canadian monarch's representative in Canada.

American War of Independence

Amherst was raised to the peerage in 1776, as Baron Amherst of Holmesdale. During the American War of Independence he rejected a field command, since he had close relations with numerous personalities of the opposite side. He was promoted to Brigadier General in 1778, and became Commander-in-Chief of the Forces.

Invasion scare

He organised Britain's land defences in anticipation of a Franco-Spanish invasion during the Armada of 1779, but the enemy landing was abandoned.

Gordon Riots

In June 1780 Amherst oversaw the British army as they suppressed the anti-Catholic Gordon Riots in London. After the outbreak of rioting Amherst deployed the small London garrison of Horse and Foot Guards as best as he could but was hindered by the reluctance of the civil magistrates to authorise decisive action against the rioters^[10]. Line troops and militia were brought in from surrounding counties, swelling the forces at Amherst's disposal to over 15,000 many of whom were quartered in tents in Hyde Park. A form of Martial Law was declared, giving the troops the authority to fire on crowds if the Riot Act had first been read. Amherst's forces were able to bring the city under control, and civil authority was soon restored. Amherst was personally alarmed by the failure of the authorities to suppress the riots.^[11]

He was replaced as Commander-in-Chief in February, 1782 by Henry Seymour Conway.

Later life

In 1788 he was created Baron Amherst of Montreal with a special provision that would allow this title to pass to his nephew (as Amherst was childless, the Holmesdale title became extinct upon his death). Sir Jeffrey again became Commander-in-Chief in 1793. He retired from that post in 1795, and was promoted to the rank of Field Marshal the following year.

Legacy

Several places are named for him: Amherstburg, Ontario, location of General Amherst High School; Amherst, Massachusetts, location of the University of Massachusetts Amherst and Amherst College (though the college is named for the town, not the man, the school's athletic nickname is "the Lord Jeffs" and the team mascot is a gentleman dressed in something approaching an 18th century British officer's uniform, but in purple, one of the school's colors, not red); Amherst, New Hampshire; Amherst, Nova Scotia; Amherst, New York; Amherst County, Virginia; Amherst Island, Ontario, and Amherst Island, the English name of Île d'Havre-Aubert of the Magdalen Islands, Quebec.

Montreal House

After the taking of Montreal in 1760, Amherst built Montreal House in his native Sevenoaks, Kent, for his seat. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries the house and family hosted an annual summer picnic for the children educated at the junior school they established in the village of Riverhead; the school still bears Amherst's coat of arms. With the decline of the family's fortunes the house was demolished in the summer of 1936 to make way for a housing development. Today only a single obelisk, the octagonal gatehouse and the derelict stone summerhouse remain as a memorial. The inscription on the obelisk, which is in danger of disappearing, does not actually mention any of the protagonists of the Canadian campaigns by name, either because they were too modest, or because they arrogantly assumed everybody would know exactly to whom it referred. The inscription says:

''To commemorate the providential and happy meeting of three brothers on this their Paternal ground on 25 January 1761 after a six years glorious war in which the three were successfully engaged in various climes, seasons and services.

Dedicated to that most able Statesman during whose Administration Cape Breton and Canada were conquered and from whose influence the British Arms derived a Degree of Lustre unparalleled in past ages.

Louisbour surrendered and Six French Battalions Prisoners of War 26 July 1758
Du Quesne taken possession of 24 November 1758
Niagara surrendered 25 July 1759
Ticonderoga taken possession of 26 July 1759
Crown Point taken possession of 4 August 1759
Quebec capitulated 18 September 1759
Fort Levi surrendered 25 August 1760
Ile au Noix abandoned 28 August 1760
Montreal surrendered and with it all Canada and 10 French Battalions laid down their Arms 8 September 1760
St Johns Newfoundland retaken 18 September 1762

See also

• List of Governors General of Canada

References

Further reading

• Cappel, Constance (2007), The Smallpox Genocide of the Odawa Tribe at L'Arbre Croche, 1763: The History of a Native American People, Lewiston, NY: The Edwin Mellen Press, ISBN 0773452206 .
• Chartrand, René (2000), Louisbourg 1758: Wolfe's first siege, Oxford: Osprey .
• Long, J. C. (1933), Lord Jeffery Amherst: A Soldier of the King, New York: MacMillan .
• Mayo, Lawrence Shaw, Jeffrey Amherst: A Biography .
• Middleton, Richard, ed. (2003), Amherst and the conquest of Canada : selected papers from the correspondence of Major-General Jeffrey Amherst while Commander-in-Chief in North America from September 1758 to December 1760, Stroud: Sutton Publishing for the Army Records Society, ISBN 0750931426 .

External links

• Biography at the Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online
• Historical Biographies: Jeffrey Amherst
• Amherst and Smallpox
• Amherst and Smallpox Blankets - Excerpts from actual letters in which Lord Jeffery Amherst approves smallpox plan (dated July 16, 1763) and discusses other methods of killing Native Americans with Colonel Henry Bouquet.
• Jeffrey Amherst and Smallpox Blankets - Extensive discussion and documentation of Amherst's involvement in warfare against Native Americans and the smallpox blanket tactics (University of Massachusetts)
• 1759 From the Warpath to the Plains of Abraham ( Virtual Exhibition)
• National Battlefields Commission (Plains of Abraham)
• Archival material relating to Jeffery Amherst, 1st Baron Amherst listed at the UK National Register of Archives

Commander-in-Chief of the Forces Duke of Albemarle · Duke of Monmouth · Earl of Marlborough · Duke of Leinster · Duke of Marlborough · Duke of Ormonde · Earl of Stair · George Wade · Duke of Cumberland · Viscount Ligionier · Marquess of Granby · Lord Amherst · Henry Conway · Lord Amherst · Duke of York · Sir David Dundas · Duke of York · Duke of Wellington · Lord Hill · Duke of Wellington · Viscount Hardinge · Duke of Cambridge · Viscount Wolseley · Earl Roberts