I represent Montfort Browne. I was the first Lieutenant Governor of the British colony of West Florida. I served in the Seven Years’ War in His Majesty’s 35th Regiment of Foot and was wounded twice. I arrived in Pensacola in January of 1766, but before that, my father, two of my brothers, and I were granted a Privy Council grant for 20,000 acres of land, some of which lay on Dauphin Island. In an effort to prove my usefulness in getting the colony populated, I brought a group of French Huguenot settlers with me. I planned to settle them on my land on Dauphin Island but there were problems with that, so they ended up in the village of Campbelltown (which was in a terrible location on Pensacola Bay and eventually withered away). My relationship with Governor George Johnstone was strained at best – he had several heated jurisdictional disputes with the military and I tended to side with them. He left West Florida in 1767 and there was no immediate replacement, leaving me in charge and the target of the ire of all his friends. In the spring and summer of 1768, I made one of the first thorough explorations of the Natchez region; I brought back glowing reports of the benefits of the area and my own interests shifted there. Governor John Eliot arrived in April 1769, but he was apparently suffering greatly from a brain tumor and he committed suicide a few weeks later. So I was back in power. As I had been making enemies left and right during my time as acting provincial governor, after Eliot’s demise I sent Elias Durnford to London to speak for me against some of the complaints they had been getting about me. He came back in December with orders that he was to replace me as acting governor. Just as I was getting ready to leave West Florida, I was involved in a duel on Gage Hill with Pensacola merchant Evan Jones – luckily, I just wounded him and he recovered. I left for England in February 1770. While there, I tried to get the British government to separate Mississippi from West Florida to become its own province – with me as the governor, of course – but could never convince them to do it. I became governor of the Bahamas, but I continued to make land deals in the Mississippi area. When the Revolutionary War broke out, I didn’t take quite enough care to be sure the American rebels weren’t headed my way – I ended up surrendering the fort and being taken prisoner. I was held in Virginia until I was exchanged. In 1777, I formed the Loyalist Prince of Wales’ American Regiment and served at the siege of Rhode Island and back in Florida before I resumed my post in the Bahamas in 1778. I was replaced in 1780.
Sources: 2, 3, 4, 12, 14, 57