Montfort Browne Montfort Browne ( fl . 1760 – 1780 ) was a British Army officer and Tory , and a major landowner and developer of British West Florida in the 1760s and 1770s . He commanded the Prince of Wales ' American Regiment , a Loyalist regiment , in the American Revolutionary War . He served as lieutenant governor of West Florida from 1766 to 1769 , acting as governor from 1767 , and then as governor of the Bahamas from 1774 to 1780 . Life . Montfort Browne was from an Irish family . According to his own writings , he served in the 35th Regiment of Foot during the Seven Years ' War , where he saw much action in the West Indies , and was twice wounded . In 1763 a complaint was lodged against him that resulted in an unfavourable court of inquiry against him . When the British took control of West Florida after the war , Browne sponsored French Huguenot and Irish immigrants to the area . Through a patronage connection with the colonial secretary , the Earl of Hillsborough , he secured the lieutenant governorship of the new province in November 1764 . Accompanied by his Irish recruits , he arrived at the provincial capital , Pensacola in January 1766 . West Florida . His first year as lieutenant governor was turbulent . Some of his land claims were contested , and the property he owned on Dauphin Island was found to be unsuitable for the population he had planned to settle there . His relationship with Governor George Johnstone was strained when Browne sided with the military in disputes between them and the governor . Johnstone left West Florida in January 1767 , leaving Browne in command of the province . Browne in 1768 led a successful expedition out to the Natchez area , bringing back a report of the fertility and emptiness of that area and suggesting that the area be developed . For his services in the war he had been awarded in the province , and he used the trip to stake out large parcels of land on the eastern banks of the Mississippi River just north of present - day Baton Rouge , Louisiana . Irregularities in Browne ' s bookkeepping in 1768 drew criticism from his patron Hillsborough , and Browne formally requested that his books be audited when Johnstone ' s successor John Eliot arrived in April 1769 . Unfortunately , Eliot committed suicide a month after his arrival , and Browne reluctantly retook the reins of power . He sent the provincial surveyor , Elias Durnford to London in May 1769 to answer ongoing complaints that colonists were making against him , but Durnford returned that December with orders removing Browne from power and granting Durnford an acting governorship . As Browne was preparing to leave the province he was involved in a duel with a Pensacolan trader . The man was wounded , and Browne would have faced criminal charges had the man died . Fortunately for Browne he recovered , and Browne sailed for England in February 1770 . He spent much of the next two years in England , having his finances scrutinized by the colonial office , and continuing to drum up interest in settlements on the Mississippi . There was public speculation on both sides of the Atlantic that the Mississippi lands would eventually be separated into their own province , with Browne as its governor . Hillsborough was apparently supportive of the idea , and resigned as colonial secretary when it was rejected . Browne continued to lobby Hillsborough ' s successor , the Earl of Darthmouth , for the establishment of a province on the Mississippi , but was unsuccessful . He was instead eventually granted the governorship of The Bahamas in March 1774 . Bahamas and Revolutionary War service . While governor of the Bahamas , Browne continued to promote land on the Mississippi . At one point he advertised for sale tracts of land as large as , suggesting that he had acquired more land while in England . He made several trips from the Bahamas to West Florida to pursue his interests in 1774 and 1775 . After the American Revolutionary War broke out in 1775 he took some precautions to secure Nassau . He had had ample warning that the Americans might make an attack there , but was caught off guard when American ships arrived off Nassau ' s sandbar on the morning of 3 March 1776 . He rushed to Government House in his nightshirt to order the firing of cannon to summon the militia . Though he managed to get most of the island ' s gunpowder stores away to St . Augustine , Florida , he failed to hold the island and was taken prisoner . With 12 other high - ranking hostages from the island he was taken back to the Chesapeake Bay by the American fleet , and was released soon afterwards in exchange for William Alexander . He then formed the Loyalist Prince of Wales ' American Regiment , served at the siege of Rhode Island , and spent some time in Florida before finally returning to the Bahamas to resume his post there in July 1778 . He then faced accusations of cowardice and incompetence for his conduct of the battle and , after dismissing his council in an attempt to scotch the rumours ( an unprecedented move ) , he was replaced by John Robert Maxwell two years later in 1780 .