tenant-governorship of Gibraltar. O'Hara was transferred in 1791 to the colonelcy of the 74th highlanders, which, being on the Indian establishment, was a more lucrative post than that of the 22nd at home. In 1792 he received the coveted lieutenant-governorship, and in 1793 became a lieutenant-general. Later in the same year he was sent from Gibraltar to Toulon, to replace Lord Mulgrave in the command of the British troops before that place. O'Hara was wounded and made prisoner when the French attacked Fort Mulgrave on 23 Nov. 1793. He was taken to Paris, and kept a prisoner in the Luxembourg during the reign of terror until August 1795, when he was exchanged with General Rochambeau. During his incarceration he told one of his fellow-prisoners, in the course of an argument: 'In England we can say King George is mad; you dare not say here that Robespierre is a tiger' (Alger, p. 227-9).
On his return to England O'Hara was appointed governor of Gibraltar in succession to General Sir Robert Boyd [q. v.] He wished the marriage with Miss Berry to take place without delay, but the lady was reluctant to leave home, and at the end of 1790 the match was broken off. To the end of her life she wrote and spoke of O'Hara as 'the most perfect specimen of a soldier and a courtier of the past age.'
O'Hara became a full general in 1798. At Gibraltar he proved himself a very active and efficient governor at a critical time. His old-fashioned discipline was rigid, but just and fair, while his lavish hospitality and agreeable companionship made him generally popular. In the military novel of 'Cyril Thornton' (p. 101) the author. Captain Thomas Hamilton (1789-1842) [q. v.], gives his youthful recollections of the 'Old Cock of the Rock,' as O'Hara was called, in his Kevenhüller hat and big jackboots, and 'double row of sausage curls that projected on either flank of his toupee;' for although a young man of his years, in all other particulars O'Hara affected the old-fashioned garb of Ligonier and Granby.
After much suffering from complications caused by his old wounds, O'Hara died at Gibraltar on 21 Feb. 1802. Although his circumstances had been straitened in earlier years, he died rich. He left a sum of 70,000l. in trust for two ladies at Gibraltar, by whom he had families, for themselves and their children. His plate, valued at 7,000l., inclusive of a piece worth 1,000l. presented to him by the merchants of Gibraltar, he bequeathed to his black servant.
[Army Lists; Mackinnon's Hist, of Coldstream Guards, vol. ii.; Cornwallis Corresp. vol. i; Horace Walpole's Letters, passim; Alger's Englishmen in the French Revolution; Extracts from the Journals of Miss Berry, vols. i. and ii.; London Gazettes, 1793; Toulon Despatches; Nelson Despatches; War Office and Colonial Office Correspondence, Gibraltar; Gent. Mag. 1802, pt. i. p. 278 (will).]
O'HARA, JAMES, Lord Kilmaine and second Lord Tyrawley (1690–1773), born in 1690, was the only son of Sir Charles O'Hara, first baron Tyrawley [q. v.]. He was appointed lieutenant in his father's regiment, the royal fusiliers, on 15 March 1703, and served at the siege of Barcelona in 1706. At the battle of Almanza he was on the staff, and was wounded; he is said to have saved Lord Galway's life. He afterwards served under Marlborough, and was severely wounded (Lodge, Peerage of Ireland, iv. 202 n.) in the wood of Tasniere, near Tournai, during the battle of Malplaquet, 11 Sept. 1709 (cf. Murray, Marlborough's Despatches, iv. 594, 606). He was with the regiment in Minorca, and on 29 Jan. 1713 succeeded his father as colonel. On 2 Jan. 1722 he was rewarded with an Irish peerage, and assumed the title of Baron Kilmaine from one of the baronies of co. Mayo. He took his seat on 29 Aug. 1723. In 1724 he succeeded his father as second Lord Tyrawley, and was sworn of the privy council on 25 June.
He appears to have been employed for some time in Ireland and Minorca, till 1727, when he was made aide-de-camp to George II, and on 20 Jan. 1728 appointed envoy-extraordinary to the court of Portugal, where he remained as ambassador till 1741. He was extremely popular, and on his departure received from the king of Portugal fourteen bars of gold (Lodge, op. cit. 203 n.) He returned to England ‘with three wives and fourteen children’ (Walpole, Letters, ed. Cunningham, i. 215), and at once gained a reputation for wit at the expense of Lords Bath and Grantham and the House of Commons. Meanwhile he had been promoted to be brigadier-general (1735), major-general (1739), and lieutenant-general (1743), and was transferred to the colonelcy of the 5th (now 4th) dragoon guards in August 1739, quitting it in April 1743 for the captaincy and colonelcy of the second troop of horse-grenadiers.
From November 1743 to February 1745 he was ambassador-extraordinary in Russia. On his return he received the command of the 3rd troop of life-guards, with the office of gold-stick (30 April 1745), from which, in 1746, he was transferred to the 10th foot; thence, in 1749, to the 14th dragoons; in 1752 to the 3rd dragoons; and finally, in
