Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Bouquet, Henry

by Thomas Finlayson Henderson

BOUQUET, HENRY (1719–1765), general, born at Rolle, in the canton of Berne, Switzerland, was in 1736 received as a cadet in the regiment of Constant in the service of the States-General of Holland,and in 1738 was made ensign in the same regiment. Thence he passed into the service of the king of Sardinia, and distinguished himself in the wars against France and Spain. The accounts he sent to Holland of these campaigns having attracted the attention of the Prince of Orange, he was engaged by him in the service of the republic. As captain-commandant, with the rank of lieutenant-colonel in the regiment of Swiss guards newly formed in the Hague in 1748, he was sent to the Low Countries to receive from the French the places they were about to evacuate. A few months afterwards he accompanied Lord Middleton in his travels in France and Italy. On the outbreak of the war between the French and English settlers in America in 1754 he was appointed lieutenant-colonel of the Royal American regiment which was then raised in three battalions, and by his integrity and capacity gained great credit, especially in Pennsylvania and Virginia. In 1763 he was sent by General Amherst from Canada with military stores and provisions for the relief of Fort Pitt, and on 5 Aug. was attacked by a powerful body of the Indians near the defile of Turtle Creek, but so completely defeated them that they gave up their designs against Fort Pitt and retreated to their remote settlements. In the following year he was sent from Canada against the Ohio Indians, and succeeded in reducing a body of Shawanese, Delaware, and other tribes to make terms of peace. At the conclusion of the peace with the Indians he was made brigadier-general and commandant of all troops in the southern colonies of British America. He died in the autumn of 1765 at Pensacola, from an epidemic then prevalent among the troops.

[The account of General Bouquet's Expedition against the Ohio Indians in 1764 was published at Philadelphia in 1765 and reprinted in London in the following year. The work has been ascribed to Thomas Hutchins, geographer of the United States, who supplied the map, but properly belongs to Dr. William Smith, provost of the College of Philadelphia. An edition in French by C. G. F. Dumas, with an historical sketch of General Bouquet, was issued at Amsterdam in 1769. An English translation of this life is added to an edition of the work published at Cincinnati in 1868, and forming vol. i. of the Ohio Historical Series. The letters and documents formerly belonging to Bouquet, and relating to military events in America, 1757-1765, occupy thirty volumes of manuscripts in the British Museum, Add. MSS. 21631-21660. In Add. MS. 21660 there is a copy of the inventory of his property and of his will.]

T. F. H.