Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Walsh, Antoine Vincent
WALSH, ANTOINE VINCENT (1703–1763), Jacobite, baptized at St. Malo on 22 Jan. 1702–3, was the son of Philip Walsh (d. 1708), a wealthy Waterford merchant who had settled at St. Malo about 1685, by Anne, daughter of James Whyte of Waterford. He married in 1741 Mary, daughter of Luke O'Shiel, an heiress. Originally in the French navy, and afterwards a shipowner at Nantes, he was introduced in 1745 to the Young Pretender, Charles Edward, by Walter Rutledge, a banker at Dunkirk [see Rutledge, James], and undertook to convey him to Scotland. Walsh was granted by the French government the frigate Elisabeth, of 67 guns, as a privateer, which, on the pretext of a cruise off the Scottish coast, was ready to act as escort to his own brig, the Doutelle, of 18 guns, on which the prince was to embark, Walsh accompanying him. On 20 June, four days after starting from Belleisle, the Elisabeth attacked an English vessel, the Lion, off the Lizard. The prince was anxious that the Doutelle should comply with her captain's entreaty to assist her, but Walsh, whom he describes as ‘a thorough seaman,’ feeling responsible for his safety, refused, and threatened, if the prince insisted, to order him down to his cabin. The combatants were both disabled, and the Elisabeth went back to St. Nazaire, while the Doutelle, continuing the voyage, landed the prince at Lochnanuagh, Inverness-shire. Walsh was knighted by Charles Edward, and presented with 2,000l. and a gold-hilted sword. After three weeks' stay on the coast, he returned to Nantes, and, albeit a French subject, was on 20 Oct. created an Irish earl by James Edward. It appears from one of his letters to Richard Augustus Warren [q. v.] that he knew nothing of English. In 1753 he received a certificate of French noblesse, and he died, apparently in St. Domingo, about 1759. He left a son, Antoine Jean Baptiste Paulin, who died without surviving male issue, and a daughter, Marie Anne Agnes, who in 1763 married a cousin, Antoine Walsh of Nantes. Walsh had a brother, François Jacques, who in 1755 was created Comte de Serrant, and whose descendants are still settled in France.
[La Chenaye Desbois' Dict. de la Noblesse; Courcelles' Hist. des Pairs; Voltaire's Siècle de Louis XV, chap. xxiv.; Young Pretender's Letter to Edgar, in Mahon's Hist. of England, vol. iii. App. p. xviii.; Narrative of Æneas Mackintosh in Jacobite Memoirs; Blordier's Essai sur Serrant, Angers, 1822; Vicomte Walsh's Souvenirs de Cinquante Ans (pref.); Chambers's Hist. of Rebellion; Lyon in mourning, Scottish Hist. Soc. vols. xx–xxii. s.v. ‘Walsh;’ Archives of Nantes; G. E. C[okayne]'s Complete Peerage, viii. 44.]
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.274
N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
| Page | Col. | Line | |
| 212 | ii | 4 f.e. | Walsh, Antoine V.: for 1759?) read 1763) and for born at St. Malo in 1703, read baptised at St. Malo on 22 Jan. 1702-3, |
| 2 f.e. | for shipowner read wealthy Waterford merchant | ||
| 213 | i | 1-2 | for Mary O'Shiel read Mary, daughter of Luke O'Shiel |
| 36 | for 1755 read 1753 | ||
| 37-38 | for and he died . . . about 1759. read Subsequently he went to San Domingo, where he died at Cap Français on 2 March 1763; his will, dated 11 Nov. 1758, was proved at Châtelet, Paris, on 13 Sept. 1763. | ||
| 39-40 | for Paulin,who died . . . issue, read (1745-1798), who was in 1772 appointed chamberlain to Maria Theresa, |