Cavalier, alarmed by delays, went up to London in person, bearing a letter of introduction to the Duke from the Archbishop:—
“Dublin, April 29, 1727. — My Lord, The Bearer, Colonel Cavalier,[1] desired I would favour him with a letter to introduce him to your Grace. If there had been occasion to raise any new regiments, he would have been glad to have served his Majesty in this juncture in the new levies. As there has been lately a promotion of general officers, and some of his juniors have been made brigadiers, he comes over to England in hopes that it was purely his being out of the way that made him be forgotten. The figure he made, and the faithfulness and the courage with which he served the Crown in the last war, are the occasion of my recommending him to your Grace’s favour and protection in this affair, though it be so much out of my sphere.”
Cavalier was promoted to the rank of Brigadier on the 27th of October 1735. In 1738 he was made Lieutenant-Governor of Jersey. The following was his commission:—
“George the Second, By the grace of God King of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, to our trusty and well-beloved John Cavalier, Esq., Brigadier-general of our Forces, greeting: We, reposing special trust and confidence in your prudence, loyalty, and courage, do, by these presents, constitute and appoint you to be Lieutenant-Governor of our Island of Jersey, and of the ports and garrisons thereunto belonging, whereof our right trusty and well-beloved cousin and councillor, Richard Viscount Cobham is Governor, in the room of Colonel Peter Bettesworth deceased. You are, therefore, carefully and diligently to discharge the duty of Lieutenant-Governor of our said Island, forts, and Garrisons, by doing and performing all and all manner of things thereunto belonging. And all our officers and soldiers, and our loving subjects of our said Island are hereby required to acknowledge and obey you as our Lieutenant-Governor thereof. And you are to observe and follow such orders and directions from time to time as you shall receive from Us, our Governor of our said Island for the time being, or any other your superior officer, according to the rules and discipline of war in pursuance of the trust we hereby repose in you — Given at our Court at St James’s, the twenty-fifth day of March 1738, in the eleventh year of our reign.
Brigadier Cavalier took the oaths of office at a Session of the Cour Royale in Jersey on the 18th August 1738. At first the Estates were disposed to be disorderly at their sittings, and the Lieutenant-Governor had, by letter, to quell them. This letter was an illustration of the union of French and English in the affairs of the Channel Islands, the letter being written in French, but dated according to what the French call the “English style,” viz., 19th January 1738 (instead of 1739). The Estates had to meet, hear the letter read, enter it in a minute, and at once adjourn. The following is a translation:—
“Gentlemen, The Lieutenant Bailly, and Gentlemen of the Estates, —
“I had resolved to be at your meeting to-day if I had not found it inconvenient. It would have been in order to declare to you that, having seen the confusion which reigns in your Assembly, through the conduct of the Procurator of the King, who said to me that he had as much authority to speak as I, I declare to you, gentlemen, that until I have fresh orders from the English Court I shall hold no more Estates. And it is to the King, my master, and to his Council, that I shall give account. I am, gentlemen, your very humble servant,
“St Helier, 19 January 1738.
“Jn. Cavallier,
Lieutenant-Gouverneur.”
Tranquillity seems to have been restored. Cavalier was promoted to be Major-General on the 2d July 1739. From the 21st July to the 19th October, six sittings of the Estates took place, at all of which he was present. At one meeting he spoke about the boulevards and platforms round the island.
The Gentleman’s Magazine announces that he died at Chelsea on the 17th May 1740; he is styled “a brave old officer;” he was about sixty years of age. And at Chelsea, on the north side of the churchyard, his remains were interred. His successor in Jersey (Francis Best, Esq.) took the oaths on the 17th Sept. 1741.
- ↑ The Dublin Editor (George Faulkner, 1770) makes this note: “This is that Colonel Cavallier who made so great a figure in the Cevennes against the powerful armies of France; he was in some respects the Paoli of those days.
