Lieut. Beiser of Webb’s, Cornet Creuseau of Schomberg and Leinster’s Horse. In 1707, at the Battle of Almanza, Captain Justeniere of Southwell’s, Capt. Cramer and Lieut. Doland of Hill’s, Captain Digoine and Ensign Ferrer of Wade’s, and Lieut.-Col. Deloches of Pierce’s were killed, and the following were made prisoners:— Lieut.-Col. Magny of Nassau’s, Capt. Saubergue of the Guards, Lieut. Morin and Champfleury of Mordaunt’s, Capt. Berniere of Gorge’s, Capts. Latour and Hauteclair, and Ensign Lamilliere of Wade’s, Lieut. Labastide of Montjoy’s, Lieut. Gedouin of Britton’s. (Colonel Armand de la Bastide was Governor of Carisbrook Castle in 1742.)
The Dutch had Huguenot refugee regiments which served the common cause in the Grand Alliance against the Bourbons. In the reign of Queen Anne, refugees who had belonged to regiments in English pay, removed their residence to Holland, that they might have the sea between them and the Bourbon-loving Jacobites. In Dumont de Bostaquet’s lists of officers, we meet with the name Vesansay, or Vesance. At the Battle of Almanza we read of Visonse’s regiment. Perhaps the colonel was the same man as the captain named by De Bostaquet, and the regiment may have been raised in Holland.
Perhaps we should mention Major de Labene of Sir Richard Temple’s Foot; after the town of Ghent had been taken by the French in July 1708, he held out in the castle with great resolution, and was granted a very honourable capitulation. He was made Lieutenant-Governor of Tynemouth Castle in 1718, and died with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel in 1722.
A book was published at the Hague in 1718 entitled, Histoire du Whigisme et du Torisme, composée par Mr. de Cize, cy-devant Officier au service d’ Angleterre; the dedicatory epistle is signed Emanuel de Cize. A learned correspondent informs me that there is an earlier edition printed at Leipsic in 1717, in which the author says that he found a refuge in England from the persecution in France. Major Duquery, of the Earl of Stair’s regiment, died on 2d July 1724. On the following September 1st, a house in Conduit Street, near Hanover Square, London, was burnt, and Captain Barbut, a Frenchman and half-pay officer, perished in the flames. On 6th February 1730, Colonel John Orfeur was appointed Governor of Southsea Castle. In September 1734 Major Pujolas was made Lieutenant-Colonel of Sir Charles Hotham’s regiment, and Major Duroure, Lieutenant-Colonel of Whetham’s.
The following promotions were announced in December 1735:— To be a General, the Marquis de Montandre; to be Major-Generals, Francis Columbine, Paul de Gualy, John Peter Des Bordes, David Montolieu, Baron de St. Hippolite; to be Brigadiers, John Cavalier, Balthazar Foisac, Andrew De Boismonell, John Ligonier, John Orfeur.
Two officers are to be found in the list of names on the Lafitte tombstone in the Huguenot Cemetery at Wandsworth. I quote the list:—
Captain Timothy Lafitte died 21st May 1737, aged sixty-three.
Mrs. Catherine Lafitte died 7th April 1740, aged nineteen.
Mrs. Timothy Lafitte died 1st July 1741, aged nineteen.
Colonel Peter Lafitte died 1742.
Mr. Peter Lewis Lafitte died 1742-3, aged twenty-six.
Mrs. Louisa Lafitte, wife of Captain Lafitte, died 18th July 1759, aged seventy.
In July 1737 Major-General Francis Columbine was made Colonel of a foot regiment, late Grove’s, and in August Albert Desbrisay became Captain Lieutenant in Oglethorpe’s. Captain Peter Ribot was buried at Wandsworth in 1738, Captain Samuel Clavis (aged sixty-nine) in 1743, Captain Peter Fraxinet (aged eighty-four) in 1746, and Captain John James Caches (aged seventy-six) in 1747. In the same Huguenot Cemetery, there is this memorial:—
Here lyeth ye body of Captain Lewis Dangilboud, who departed this life on ye 2 2d of November, in ye year of our Lord 1748.
In December 1738 there died in Virginia, Major Abraham Nicholas, for many years Adjutant-General of that colony.
Wolfe’s biographer mentions Captain Charles Desclouseaux, “an officer of skill and capacity,” who was wounded at Fontenoy; he was made Fort-Major of Berwick in 1755.
In the “Ulster Journal,” vol. iv., the admirable article on French settlers in Waterford (by Rev. Thomas Gimlette), notes the following officers:— Major Sautelle (whose heiress was Mary), Quartermaster Peter Chelar, Captains Louis du Chesne, Abraham Franquefort, John Vaury, and Louis Belafaye; Lieutenants Emmanuel Toupelin Delize and Besard de Lamaindre. A similar article on Youghal notes the deaths of Cornet Daniel Coluon (1738), Captain James Dezieres (1747), Lieut. Pierre Maziere (1746), Ensign John Roviere (1736); a site in Youghal is still called “Roviere’s Holdings.”
Major Achiles La Columbine was long resident in Carlow; he was very zealous from the , year 1731 and downwards for the spiritual interests of the parish and the rebuilding of the parish church; he died on 31st August 1752, and was buried in the Carlow churchyard.
A young officer, named Desmaretz, entered our army in 1709, and served under the Duke of Marlborough. After the Peace of Utrecht he was sent to Dunkirk to survey the works, and was appointed the Commissary of the Court of England in that celebrated port. There he lived for fifty-five years, and rose by regular promotion to the rank of Colonel. So that the sum of his uneventful record was that Colonel Dumaresq, the first British Commissary at Dunkirk, died in October 1768 at Dunkirk, having been sent there by Queen Anne, and having there “resided ever after.”
