NAM.1988-08-36-1

Memoirs, MS Memoirs I.A.O. From papers of Lt Gen Sir James Adolphus Oughton (1719-1780), 1734-1779. Containing a translation of a treatise on fortifications and an account of Oughton's life from the age of eight to 1743. The first 13 pages are occupied with the text of 'The Art of War by Allain Mannesson Mallet, Engineer and Serjt [sic] Maj to the Artillery in Portugall [sic]. Translated from French. Part the First. The Method of fortifying all manner of Places Regular and Irregular. Adorn'd with Draughts'. Contains a number of pen and ink illustrations, some of them stuck in. Mallett's book was published in three volumes between 1671 and 1685. No English translation of it seems to have appeared in print. Page 15 begins, 'Verses, Letters, Notes, Observations, and other Miscellaneous Compositions of my own; transcribed from losse [sic] Papers, and enter'd as they were wrote, without Correction', a series of letters, poems and compositions (much of it in latin) written by Oughton from the age of eight. Page 29 begins 'extracts from a Diary', starting in 1736 when, as a 17 year old undergraduate he began his studies in Dublin, which were disturbed by the illness and death of his father, whose life he chronicles on pages 32-35, and his return home to England on page 36. In 1737 he was commissioned as a cornet in the 8th Dragoons and served Ballyshannon, Sligo, Galway, Dublin and Longford to 1741, when he returned to England (page 87). From London he went to Ostend which he reached 27 Jun 1742 (page 97), proceeding to Bruges, Dunkirk. In 1743 he was back in England, at London and Coventry (page 112), returning to Ostend, 16 May 1743, the narrative ending on 20 May 1743. Associated with Allain Mannesson Mallet, Sir Adolphus Oughton (d 1736), 37th Foot, Coldstream Guards and 8th Hussars.

War of the Austrian Succession (1740-1748)