To conquer the French and the main concentration
of their forces at Montreal, Amherst realized he would
have to proceed cautiously rather than risk a full head-
on assault. To this end, in July 1759 he attacked Fort
Niagara, which severed French general Louis-Joseph,
marquis de montcalm de saint-Véran’s access to
communication and supplies in French Louisiana. With
11,000 men in his command, Amherst then launched an
attack against Fort Ticonderoga, capturing it without a
shot on 26 July 1759. Amherst’s forces also took Crown
Point (August 1759), and General James Wolfe was
sent to Quebec, which was taken in September 1759.
These three armies, having cut off the French in several
areas and denied them a cohesive defense, now marched
on Montreal. Realizing that surrender was the only pos-
sibility, the French gave up the city in September 1760.
Amherst, having accomplished the Pitt government’s
dream in one short year, was named governor-general of
what was called British North America.
Congratulated by Parliament for his service, Am-
herst was made a Knight Commander of the Order of
Bath (KCB), and he seemed to have become a great
military commander. However, while the French had
collapsed before his forces, another enemy put up a far
more aggressive defense: the American Indians under
Chief Pontiac. Pontiac saw the British victory over the
French as a threat to his own tribe, the Ottawa, whom
he led into a revolt in 1763. Amherst tried to put down
the uprising with regular military methods, but the In-
dians’ use of hit-and-run and other tactics frustrated the
British. What Amherst finally did has become highly
controversial: Many historians agree that the British
commander used smallpox to murder the Indians, per-
haps the first use of biological agents in warfare. His-
torian John Cuthbert Long, in his 1933 biography of
Amherst, quotes one letter that the British commander
wrote: “Could it not be contrived to send a smallpox...
I will try to infect them with some blankets.. .” He sent
a similar message to Colonel Henry Bouquet on 16 July
1763: “You will do well to try to inoculate the Indians by
means of blankets, as well as to try every other method
that can serve to extirpate this execrable race.” It ap-
pears that this and other methods that Amherst utilized
all failed, because the British government recalled him
in late 1763. However, the Treaty of Paris, signed that
same year, confirmed England’s gains, ending French
rule in North America and consolidating the British
position.
To soften the blow of being recalled, Parliament ap-
pointed Amherst as governor of the Virginia colony in
1768 and, two years later, as governor of Guernsey. In
1772, he was made a privy councillor and lieutenant gen-
eral of the Ordnance. From 1778 to 1795, with a break
of one year, he served as commander in chief. In 1776,
he was styled as Baron Amherst, and he was given the
title of field marshal in 1796. He died at Sevenoaks in
Kent, on 31 August 1797 at the age of 80. Lord Walpole
said of him, “[He] was a man of indomitable perseverance
and courage, but slow and methodical in his movements.
Provident, conciliating and cool, Amherst disposed his
operations with steadiness, neither precipitating nor de-
laying beyond the due point, and comprehending the
whole under a due authority which he knew how to as-
sume.” However, one biographer, Henry Morse Stephens,
has noted that “Lord Amherst’s great military services were
all performed in the years 1758, 1759, and 1760, when
he proved himself worthy of high command by his quiet
self-control and skillful combinations. His failure with the
Indians was not strange, for he committed the great fault
of despising his enemy... He was by no means a good
commander-in-chief, and allowed innumerable abuses to
grow up in the army. Yet, though not a great man, he de-
serves a very honorable position amongst English soldiers
and statesmen of the last century.”
Amherst’s brother John (ca. 1718–78) was a Brit-
ish admiral, as was his brother William (1732–81), who
served with Jeffrey at Louisburg and Montreal. Amherst
College in Massachusetts was named in Jeffrey Amherst’s
honor.References: Mayo, Lawrence Shaw, Jeffrey Amherst: A
Biography (New York: Longmans, Green & Co., 1916);
Long, John Cuthbert, Lord Jeffery Amherst: A Soldier of
the King (New York: Macmillan, 1933); Stephens, Henry
Morse, “Amherst, Jeffrey, Baron Amherst,” in The Dic-
tionary of National Biography, 22 vols., 8 supps., edited
by Sir Leslie Stephen and Sir Sidney Lee, et al. (London:
Oxford University Press, 1921–22), I:357–359.Anson, George, Baron Anson of
Soberton (1697–1762) English admiral
Born in the village of Shugborough, Staffordshire,
on 23 April 1697, George Anson was the nephew of
Lord Macclesfield, chief justice of England from 1710
to 1718 and lord chancellor of England from 1718 to AnSon, geoRge, bARon AnSon oF SobeRton