[Thomas Ord, Colonel Commandant of the 4th Battalion of the Royal Artillery.] Manuscript document detailing his ‘Services’ in the West Indies, Flanders and America.

Something akin to a CV in a neat contemporary hand (perhaps Ord’s own, in pursuit of preferment or a pension?). A useful summary of Ord’s career features in ‘Commissary Wilson’s Orderly Book. Expedition of the British and Provincial Army, under Maj. Gen. Jeffrey Amherst, against Ticonderoga and Crown Point. 1759.’ (New York, 1857): ‘THOMAS ORD was appointed Captain in the Royal Artillery on 1st March, 1746. He was an excellent Officer, and stood high in the Duke of Cumberland’s esteem, by whom he was selected to Command the Artillery in Braddock’s Expedition. Landing in Newfoundland, he hastened to New York, and arrived in Philadelphia 7th June, 1755, whence he proceeded to the Seat of War accompanied by 13 non-commissioned Officers (Sargent’s Expedition of Braddock, 364). In 1759 he was Major and commanded the Artillery in the present Expedition [by Amherst]; was promoted to be Lieutenant-Colonel 21st November same Year, and accompanied Amherst from Oswego to Montreal in 1760. In 1762, he commanded the Artillery in the Expedition against Martinico; in 1771 became Colonel Commandant of the 4th Battalion of the Royal Artillery serving in America, and died in 1777. He had a tract of Land in the Town of Newcomb, Essex County, N. Y. (Army Lists; Burr’s Map of Essex County; Knox, I, 360, 366, 386, 388, 389; II, 392; Mante, 353).’ 1p, 8vo. On laid paper with an eighteenth-century watermark. In fair condition, lightly aged, with a little fraying and chipping at extremities, and a central horizontal fold, with traces of grey-paper mount adhering at its reverse. The document is very neatly written out, and covers the whole page, under the heading: ‘The Services of Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Ord of the Royal Regiment of Artillery -’. Each entry is divided into three sections: ‘When / Years’, ‘Where Serv’d’ and ‘Under Command of’. The first part under headings ‘In the West Indies’ (1740-1742, under ‘Lord Cathcart and General Wentworth’) and ‘In Flanders’ (1744-1748, under ‘His Royal Highness the Duke of Cumberland’); the second part is under the heading ‘In America’ (1750-1762, with 1750-1754 at ‘The Garrison of Newfoundland’). Between 1755 and 1762 Ord ‘Commanded an Artillery and Staff’, including in 1757 ‘In the Province of New York’ under ‘Lord Loudon & Genl. Webb’. In 1759 and 1760 Ord was in ‘Montreal in Canada’ under ‘General Amherst’, and in 1761 and 1762 at the ‘Expedition and Reduction of Martinica [sic]’ under ‘General Monckton’.