In 1747, he was promoted major-general and made colonel of a dragoon regiment (later the 12th Dragoons). He led a brigade of infantry at the Battle of Lauffeld, and was made a Knight Companion of the Order of the Bath at the end of the War of the Austrian Succession. He was appointed Governor of Sheerness in 1752. James Wolfe, who was his houseguest while courting his niece in 1754, remarked on his civility and pleasant manner.