Thomas Mante

Little is known of the author of the now famous A History of the Late War in North America, and the islands of the West Indies, including the campaigns of MDCCLXIII and MDCCLXIV against His Majesty’s Indian enemies (London, 1772). Thomas Mante may have been of Huguenot extraction and apparently received some training as an engineer before his British service. He was transferred from the Marines to the 77th Foot (Montgomery's Highlanders) while serving ashore as an Assistant Engineer at the Siege of Havana, 1762. Discharged on half-pay in 1763, Mante, a fluent French speaker, volunteered to act as Col John Bradstreet’s major of brigade for an expedition to punish the western Lakes Indians and to recover all white captives. As Bradstreet was subsequently castigated for making a premature peace with the Indians and undermining Col Bouquet’s southern expedition to the Muskingum for the same purpose, it’s not surprising that Bradstreet could not obtain remuneration for Mante, who returned penniless to England. On his return, he published a Treatise on the Use of Defensive Arms, translated from the French of Joly de Maizeray, with Remarks (London, 1771) and his magnum opus A History of the Late War the following year. In 1773, Mante took service with the French government, and with one brief interval, continued that service for about eight years, all the while acting as a British secret agent. In 1779 he was imprisoned for four months on charges of conducting an illegal correspondence with theBritish government. On his release he was in bad health “in consequence of having been cut for the stone twice in five monthsâ€? he returned to England in 1781. He endeavoured fruitlessly to obtain compensation for his services from the British government and lived on the somewhat grudging charity of a brother and the benevolence of his former commanding officer, Archie Montgomery, now the 11th earl Eglinton, the Duke of Richmond and Sir Guy Carleton, the latter to whom he dedicated his System of Tactics, also translated from the French of Joly de Maizeray. His papers, which now reside in the National Archives of Canada suggest he augmented his income by writing romantic novels and perhaps other popular works for Thomas Hookham’s Circulating Library. He died in 1785.
His History provides useful and usually factual accounts of the principal campaigns of the day and are augmented with the best contemporary maps of the day. A must for any SYW collector.… (plus d'informations)