SUCCESSION OF COLONELS
OF
THE EIGHTY-SEVENTH REGIMENT,
OR
THE ROYAL IRISH FUSILIERS.
Sir John Doyle, Bart., G.C.B. and K.C.
Appointed 3rd May 1796.
This officer was descended from an ancient Irish family, and was born at Dublin in the year 1756. He was at first intended for the law, which, on the death of his father, he relinquished for the military profession, and was appointed Ensign in the Forty-eighth regiment on the 21st of March 1771, in which he was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant on the 17th of September 1773, and was wounded while on duty in Ireland. Lieutenant Doyle exchanged to the Fortieth regiment on the 1st of March 1775, and embarked with that corps for North America in the same year. During the War of Independence in that country he served with his regiment in the descent on Long Island in August 1776, and was present at the actions of Brooklyn, White Plains (28th of October), Fort Washington, Haerlem Creek, Springfield, and Iron Hills. In the action at Brooklyn, on the 27th of August, Lieutenant Doyle was brought into notice by conduct which combined the best feelings with the most animated courage. He was Adjutant of the Fortieth, commanded by Lieut.-Colonel Grant, who was regarded as a father by the younger portion of the corps. The Lieut.-Colonel was desperately wounded early in the action, which becoming very hot where he lay, Lieutenant Doyle, fearing he might be trampled to death, rushed with a few followers into the midst of the enemy, and dragged away the body of his friend; but it was too late, for he had expired. This act made a strong impression on all who witnessed it, and produced a handsome compliment from the Commander-in-Chief, General the Honorable Sir William Howe.
Lieutenant Doyle was present at the action of Brandywine, fought on the 11th of September 1777, which was followed by the capture of Philadelphia. He shared in the surprise of General Wayne’s corps during the night of the 20th of September, and was again wounded at the battle of Germantown on the 4th of October. In the latter the Fortieth regiment highly distinguished itself by the defence of Chew’s Stone House, which was occupied under the following circumstances:—About three weeks after the affair of Brandywine, when the American troops were supposed to be totally dispersed, General Washington made a movement with the intention of surprising the British at Germantown. The advanced post of the British army was occupied by a battalion of light infantry and the Fortieth regiment, then commanded by Lieut.-Colonel Musgrove. These troops were attacked about daybreak on the 4th of October by the main body of the American army, commanded by General Washington in person. After a very spirited defence they were obliged to give way to numbers, and to retire towards Germantown. In this retreat Colonel Musgrove took possession of a large stone house, with such of the regiment as were nearest to it. This small body, not exceeding five officers and about one hundred and fifty men, stopped the progress of the enemy’s whole column, consisting of five thousand men, for a considerable time, notwithstanding cannon being brought to bear upon the house. This gallant defence was highly instrumental in saving the British army. In this affair Lieutenant Doyle and two officers were wounded. For this service the detachment was honored with His Majesty’s particular thanks.
In the spring of 1778, General the Honorable Sir William Howe, K.B., returned to England, and the command of the army in North America devolved on General Sir Henry Clinton, K.B. The next action in which Lieutenant Doyle shared was that at Monmouth Court-House on the 28th of June 1778, and on the 24th of October following he was promoted to a company in the corps raised by Lord Rawdon (afterwards Marquis of Hastings), which was at first named the “Volunteers of Ireland,” but which was subsequently numbered the One hundred and fifth regiment. Shortly after General Sir Henry Clinton assumed the chief command, it was deemed a measure of policy to withdraw from the ranks of the enemy the natives of Scotland and Ireland. Two regiments were raised by distinguished noblemen of these countries; one was designated the “Caledonian Volunteers,” and the other the “Volunteers of Ireland.” The former was given to Lord Cathcart, and the latter to Lord Rawdon, then Adjutant-General in America. The officers were chosen from the line, and Lieutenant Doyle obtained a company as above stated.
In the celebrated retreat through the Jerseys, Captain Doyle acted as Major of Brigade. During the winter of 1779 his regiment was ordered to South Carolina, under the command of Lord Rawdon, where he assisted at the siege of Charleston. After the fall of this place in May 1780, Captain Doyle accompanied Lieut.-General the Earl Cornwallis up the country, by whom he was appointed Major of Brigade, and was honorably mentioned in his Lordship’s despatch relative to the action at Camden, which was fought on the 16th of August 1780.
Upon Lord Cornwallis quitting the province of South Carolina, Captain Doyle served in the same capacity to Colonel Lord Rawdon, who succeeded to the command of this portion of the troops, and soon had another opportunity of distinguishing himself. General Green, having contrived after the battle of Guildford, on the 15th of March 1781, to turn Lord Cornwallis’s left, by a rapid movement penetrated the upper parts of South Carolina, and presented himself before the village of Camden, where Lord Rawdon commanded a small detachment, not exceeding nine hundred men, while the enemy’s force consisted of three thousand regulars, a fine corps of cavalry, and a numerous body of militia, strongly posted on the heights above the village in which the British were quartered. His Lordship seeing the difficulty of a retreat, boldly determined to advance against the enemy. Accordingly on the 25th of April 1781, he chose the hour of mid-day to make his attempt, when least expected, his march being concealed by a circuitous route through thick woods. This sudden and rapid manœuvre enabled his Lordship to reach Hobkirk Hill before General Green became aware of the movement, and the British gained a complete victory. The exertions of Brigade-Major Doyle on this well-fought field were alluded to in highly honorable terms in his Lordship’s despatch. Having raised the siege of Ninety-six, Lord Rawdon returned to England on account of ill health, when the Brigade-Major prepared to join the Earl Cornwallis in Virginia; but in consequence of the effects of the action at Ewtaw Springs on the 8th of September 1781, he was requested, from his knowledge of the country, to remain in the province to fill a more prominent situation. He subsequently acted as Adjutant-General and Public Secretary to Colonel Paston Gould; and on that officer’s decease in the following year, he was honored with the same confidence by his successors, Major-General James Stuart and Lieut.-General the Honorable Alexander Leslie.
Captain Doyle was promoted on the 21st of March 1782 to the rank of Major in the “Volunteers of Ireland,” which corps at this period was numbered the One hundred and fifth regiment. Major Doyle formed a corps of light cavalry from amongst the backwoodsmen, with which he rendered essential service to the army, and was again severely wounded. In the expedition against General Marion he charged the State regiment of Carolina dragoons with his advanced corps of seventy horse, the killed, wounded, and prisoners of the enemy exceeding his whole force. The American War shortly afterwards terminated, and the One hundred and fifth regiment was ordered to Ireland, when Major Doyle was entrusted with public despatches to the ministers.
Peace having now taken place, Major Doyle entered upon a new scene of action, and was returned member for Mullingar in the Irish parliament of 1782, when his exertions were devoted to the improvement of the establishment in Ireland, similar to Chelsea Hospital, for the relief of disabled and worn-out soldiers. The One hundred and fifth regiment was disbanded in 1784, and Major Doyle remained on half-pay from the 25th of June of that year until the war of the French Revolution in 1793, when he offered to raise a regiment of his countrymen for the service of Government; and his Royal Patron honored the corps with the appellation of “The Prince of Wales’s Irish Regiment,” and it was numbered the Eighty-seventh, of which Major Doyle was appointed Lieut.-Colonel Commandant on the 18th of September 1793, and with which he proceeded in the following year to the Continent, with the force commanded by Major-General the Earl of Moira, under whom (as Lord Rawdon) he had served in America.
Lieut.-Colonel Doyle served during the campaign of 1794 under His Royal Highness the Duke of York, and repulsed an attack of the enemy at Alost, on the 15th of July of that year, after having been twice severely wounded, being the first individual of the regiment who was wounded. His conduct was honorably noticed in His Royal Highness’s despatch. Lieut.-Colonel Doyle next proceeded to Antwerp, and ultimately to England for the recovery of his wounds, when he was afterwards appointed Secretary-at-War in Ireland.
In consequence of the reduction of the Prince of Wales’s household, Lieut.-Colonel Doyle lost the appointment of Secretary to His Royal Highness; but, notwithstanding this decrease of income, he closed his political career by a mark of generosity worthy of being recorded. His regiment being still prisoners in France, under the circumstances narrated at page 6., he collected their wives and families, and distributed five hundred pounds amongst them.
On the 3rd of May 1796, Lieut.-Colonel Doyle was promoted to be Colonel of the Eighty-seventh regiment, and proceeded in the command of a secret expedition to Holland, with the rank of Brigadier-General; but contrary winds, violent gales, and unavoidable delays, rendered the expedition fruitless, its object being to surprise and destroy the Dutch fleet in the Helder.
In 1797 Colonel Doyle was appointed a Brigadier-General upon the staff, and was ordered to Gibraltar, where he remained until the expedition was determined on for Malta and Egypt, when, having volunteered his services, he was placed on the staff under General Sir Ralph Abercromby, whom he accompanied to Minorca, Malta, and Cadiz, and was selected as one of his brigadier-generals upon the expedition to Egypt, when he shared in the actions, near Alexandria, of the 8th, 13th, and 21st of March 1801, after which he was selected by Lieut.-General Hutchinson, who succeeded to the command on the death of General Sir Ralph Abercromby, to accompany him in the expedition against Grand Cairo. He was also at the affair of Rhamanie on the 9th of May, subsequently to which the army halted at the village of Algam. On the morning of the 17th of May, when the army was encamped upon the borders of the Lybian Desert, an Arab was conducted to Brigadier-General Doyle’s tent, who brought intelligence that a body of French troops, which he computed at two thousand men, was within a few miles of the camp, with a large convoy of camels. Brigadier-General Doyle immediately requested permission to pursue the enemy with such of the cavalry as might be in the camp; and Lieut.-General Hutchinson acceding to his request, he repaired thither, where he ascertained that the Turkish cavalry had been detached a day or two before, and that a squadron of the Twelfth light dragoons had, prior to his arrival, been sent to water at some distance. As success depended on promptness and expedition, the Brigadier immediately struck into the desert in search of the enemy, without waiting for the absent squadron, which he left to an officer to bring on. After a long pursuit, the cavalry came up with the French troops, when they formed a hollow square, and commenced an irregular fire of musketry. The French commander, after some parley, was obliged to surrender on the terms offered; twenty-eight officers, five hundred and sixty-nine rank and file, two hundred horses, four hundred and sixty camels, one four-pounder, besides a stand of colours, were taken on this occasion by the detachment under Brigadier-General Doyle, which consisted of two hundred and fifty dragoons.
After the capitulation of Grand Cairo in June 1801, Lieut.-General Hutchinson (afterwards the Earl of Donoughmore) in his public despatches, expressed his obligations to Major-General Cradock and Brigadier-General Doyle, and recommended them as “officers highly deserving His Majesty’s favour.” Upon the surrender of Cairo, the country fever seized many of the troops, and Brigadier-General Doyle, with several others, was sent ill to Rosetta, where, before his recovery, he heard a rumour of an intended attack upon the French at Alexandria. Urged by this intelligence, he left his sick bed, mounted his horse, and rode forty miles through the desert, under the intense heat of an Egyptian sun, and arrived the night before the attack. In that successful enterprise he commanded, and had the good fortune to defeat the attempts subsequently made by General Menou upon a part of his position. Lieut.-General Hutchinson, on the following day, thanked him publicly in the field in the most animated manner; but in writing his official despatch, not only omitted to forward the Brigadier-General’s report of the action of the Green Hills, near Alexandria, on the 17th of August 1801, but unfortunately stated his brigade to have been commanded by another. This omission was afterwards fully rectified by the Lieut.-General, and the matter was adverted to by Lord Hobart in the House of Commons, who particularly alluded to the conduct of Brigadier-General Doyle, when moving the thanks of Parliament to the army and navy employed in Egypt.
While at Naples, after the close of the Egyptian campaign, whither Brigadier-General Doyle had proceeded for the recovery of his health, he was requested by the British ambassador to become the bearer of important despatches to the Government. This proved a service of great danger, as the country through which he passed was infested with banditti, who robbed and assassinated all who fell into their hands. His conduct on this occasion was gratefully acknowledged by His Majesty’s ministers. Upon his arrival in England, he was promoted to the rank of Major-General on the 29th of April 1802, and was placed on the staff at Guernsey, and was soon afterwards appointed Lieut.-Governor of that island, where his services during the threatened invasion of England by Napoleon were highly appreciated. Shortly afterwards the island of Alderney was added to his command. In October 1805, he was created a Baronet of the United Kingdom, and received His Majesty’s royal license to wear the Order of the Crescent conferred by the Grand Seignior, and to bear supporters to his arms, with an additional crest. On the 25th of April 1808, he was promoted to the rank of Lieut.-General.
Lieut.-General Sir John Doyle was selected to organise and command the Portuguese army, but the despatch ordering him to report himself for that purpose to the Secretary of State, was prevented from reaching him by a gale of wind that lasted for twenty-eight days, and another officer was consequently sent upon that service, which did not admit of delay. In 1812 he was nominated a Knight of the Bath, and in 1815 became a Knight Grand Cross of that Order.
Whilst the Sovereign and the Government were thus marking their approbation of the services of Lieut.-General Sir John Doyle, the inhabitants of Guernsey, whose government he had so long administered, were not slow in manifesting their gratitude for the benefits they derived from his fostering care. The States of the Island voted him an address of thanks under their great seal, and presented him with a splendid piece of plate, in the form of a vase, with suitable inscriptions; their example was followed by the militia and other public bodies with similar valuable and elegant testimonials; and when he was recalled in consequence of the reduction of the staff on the peace of 1815, they unanimously petitioned the Prince Regent that they might retain their Lieutenant-Governor, and voted the erection of a pillar, at the public expense, as a memorial of their gratitude for the services rendered by him to the island and its inhabitants.
Lieut.-General Sir John Doyle, Bart., was appointed Governor of Charlemont on the 21st of September 1818, and on the 12th of August of the following year he was advanced to the rank of General. His decease occurred in London, on the 8th of August 1834, after a lengthened service of sixty-three years.