Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Dillon, Arthur Richard (1750-1794)
DILLON, ARTHUR RICHARD (1750–1794), general in the French service, son of Henry, eleventh viscount, and nephew of Archbishop Dillon [q. v.], was born in 1750 at Braywick, Berkshire. Sub-lieutenant in Dillon's regiment, he was in 1767 appointed to the colonelcy, which Louis XV, reluctant to see it pass from the family, had kept vacant from 1747. He served in the West Indies during the American war, was governor of St. Kitt's during its brief occupancy by the French, visited London on the peace of 1783, and was complimented by the lord chancellor on his administration of that island. He became brigadier-general in 1784 with a pension of 1,000f., was three years governor of Tobago, was deputy for Martinique in the National Assembly, and was a frequent speaker on colonial questions. In June 1792 he received the command of the army of the north, offended the Jacobins by a general order reprobating the capture of the Tuileries, was supplanted by Dumouriez, under whom he distinguished himself in the Argonne passes, fell again under suspicion on account of a letter offering the landgrave of Hesse an unmolested retreat, was imprisoned for six weeks in 1792, and again for eight months in 1793–4. Condemned as a ringleader in the alleged Luxembourg prison plot, he was guillotined on 14 April with twenty others, including Lucile Desmoulins, with whom and her husband he had been on intimate terms. He was twice married, and left two daughters, one of whom, Fanny, married General Bertrand, and was with Napoleon at Elba and St. Helena.
[Moniteur and other Paris newspapers, 1789–94; Révolution française, March 1884; Observations sur les Officiers irlandais.]