13 Facts About Jeffery Amherst

Jeffery Amherst is credited as the architect of Britain's successful campaign to conquer the territory of New France during the Seven Years' War.

Jeffery Amherst was the first British Governor General in the territories that eventually became Canada.

Jeffery Amherst's legacy is controversial due to his expressed desire to exterminate the race of indigenous people during Pontiac's War, and his alleged gifting of blankets infected with smallpox as a weapon, notably at the Siege of Fort Pitt.

Jeffery Amherst was left dispirited by the retreat and by the Convention of Klosterzeven by which Hanover agreed to withdraw from the war: he began to prepare to disband the Hessian troops under his command, only to receive word that the Convention had been repudiated and the Allied force was being reformed.

From his base at New York, Jeffery Amherst oversaw the dispatch of troops under Monckton and Haviland to take part in British expeditions in the West Indies that led to the British capture of Dominica in 1761 and Martinique and Cuba in 1762.

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Jeffery Amherst, having learned that smallpox had broken out among the garrison at Fort Pitt, and after learning of the loss of his forts at Venango, Le Boeuf and Presqu'Isle, wrote to Colonel Bouquet:.

Jeffery Amherst was summoned home, ostensibly so that he could be consulted on future military plans in North America, and was replaced pro tem as Commander-in-Chief, North America by Thomas Gage.

Jeffery Amherst expected to be praised for his conquest of Canada once in London, he was instead asked to account for the recent Native American rebellion.

Jeffery Amherst was forced to defend his conduct, and faced complaints made by William Johnson and George Croghan, who lobbied the Board of Trade for his removal and permanent replacement by Gage.

Jeffery Amherst was severely criticised by military subordinates on both sides of the Atlantic.

Long-standing plan of the French had been the concept of an invasion of Great Britain which they hoped would lead to a swift end to the war if it was successful: in 1779 Spain entered the war on the side of France, and the increasingly depleted state of British home forces made an invasion more appealing and Jeffery Amherst organised Britain's land defences in anticipation of the invasion which never materialised.

In 2009, Montreal City Councillor Nicolas Montmorency officially asked that Rue Jeffery Amherst be renamed: "it is totally unacceptable that a man who made comments supporting the extermination of Native Americans to be honoured in this way".

In 2016, Amherst College dropped its "Lord Jeffery" mascot at the instigation of the students.