1-152-182 - Ann Ronan Picture Library/Heritage-Images

Jeffrey Amherst, lst Baron Amherst (1717-1797), English soldier, c1910. Amherst commanded British forces in the war against the French in North America in 1758-1760, capturing Montreal in 1760. He was made Governor of Virginia in 1763. He has been implicated in an early case of germ warfare, a plan to supply rebelling Native Americans with smallpox-infected blankets during the Pontiac uprising of 1763, but historians are divided as to whether the plan was actually carried out. Amherst was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the British army in 1778, a post he held until 1795.