Major Arthur Loftus (1724 - 1781) of Dorset Street, Dublin was an Anglo-Irish Member of Parliament in the Irish House of Commons from 1768 until his death in 1781, having previously served in the British Army for 26 years latterly in North America, widely challenged for having lead a failed expedition up the Misssissippi River.
Arthur Loftus was born in Ireland, the second of three sons to Simon and Hannah Loftus (née Johnson). His father had been transferred back to Ireland having served as a captain in Colonel Harrison's Regiment in the Battles of Malplaquet and Glen Shiel. Loftus is thought to have grown up in the parish of Clara to a military household with his sister and brothers, the brothers a year apart in age and each later to be commissioned in the British Army at the age of sixteen. Loftus's older brother Ensign Dudley Loftus joined their father's regiment in 1739 just before it was deployed to the Caribbean. Dudley Loftus was killed during the assault on Fort San Lazar in 1741, and his father died almost a year later, partly from injuries sustained in the same battle and partly from disease contracted at sea off Jamaica. Loftus was granted a commission in the British Army as an ensign in the same regiment as his father weeks before his father died from his injuries.
A month after Loftus joined Colonel Harrison's Regiment of Foot, he was promoted to lieutenant, probably as part of the Irish establishment. The regiment returned from the Caribbean in 1742, replenishing its losses in England before transferring to Ostend in 1745 to support British troops garrisoned there against the French, returning in the same year when Jacobite forces began an incursion into England. For the next four years, Loftus participated in expeditionary assaults on Brittany until 1748 following a peace treaty signed in Aix-la-Chapelle, when the regiment transferred back to Ireland.
Loftus was promoted to Captain in 1754 and before long was transferred to the English establishment to participate in renewed assaults on the French. In early 1758, he transferred to Halifax in North America, serving under General Lawrence at the Siege of Louisbourg. Loftus remained at Louisbourg after the siege and in the summer of 1759, joined General Wolfe at the assault on Quebec, where the British faced a much larger force of French troops under the command of the Marquis de Montcalm. Wolfe's forces tried repeatedly to break the French entrenchments over three months, culminating in the final battle, which lasted just one hour on the 13th of September. Loftus was deployed on the left flank under General Townshend, and was wounded in the same battle that saw the deaths of both Wolfe and Montcalm. Two months later, Loftus was stationed in Boston, where he remained until at least the summer of 1760.
Having served in his father's regiment for twenty years, Loftus transferred to the 22nd Regiment of Foot in October 1760, promoted to the rank of Major. The regiment took part in the capture of Martinique and the Siege of Havana in 1762, where Loftus was commended for his leadership of a force of six hundred and two rank and file. The Regiment moved in 1763 to West Florida, which at the time encompassed all territory between the Mississippi and Apalachicola Rivers with its capital at Pensacola where Loftus was stationed.
In 1763, Britain signed a peace treaty with France ending the seven years' French and Indian War. All French Illinois country east of the Mississippi were ceded to British control, an area so vast that âÂÂEngland found herself in possession of more territory at the close of the French and Indian war than her king and ministry could well governâÂÂ. The first expeditionary force to exert control over the territory was assigned to Loftus, who was charged with taking possession of the fortress of Chartres, the administrative centre for the region. The plan had been conceived by Colonel Robertson and involved mounting a waterborne expedition to travel the nine hundred mile stretch of the Mississippi from New Orleans and taking possession of Fort Chartres, a journey that was expected to take two to four months assuming the full cooperation of the French.
Colonel Robertson had arranged for boats and equipment to be procured in New Orleans but had been unable to recruit a guide for expedition. As early as January 1764, Loftus arrived at Mobile with a detachment of three hundred and fifty-one men, arriving in New Orleans in early February. Despite Loftus applying severe discipline amongst his men, the French Governor reported twenty desertions before the expedition had started. Loftus picked up the boats and provisions and set off heavily laden on February the 27th. The Mississippi river was in full flow, creating strong currents, which when combined with adverse winds, made progress both laborious and slow. Disease began to take hold resulting in one death and frequent desertions. Three weeks and two hundred and forty miles later at Roche Davion, the flotilla was attacked by Tonica Indians. Loftus abandoned the expedition having lost around a quarter of his men, mostly through desertions.
Back in Mobile, Loftus accused the French of colluding with the Indians to maintain lucrative trade between New Orleans and the Illinois, but nothing was ever proven, despite the welcome accorded by the French when the same chiefs who were involved in the ambush on Loftus entered New Orleans shortly after. The failure of the expedition arguably encouraged the Indians to resist British rule, resulting in PontiacâÂÂs War. To some extent, the responsibility for failure fell back on Loftus and Roche Davion became known as Loftus Heights. General Gage indicated that insufficient care had been exercised to ensure success and that a second attempt would succeed if Loftus exercised "necessary precautions". In 1765, new evidence did emerge in support of Loftus's claims, but he was never given the opportunity to mount a second attempt, as the regiment was withdrawn from West Florida in 1765 and returned to England.
Loftus spent the next two years with his regiment "employed at various stations" around England. It was during this period that he re-established his domicile in Ireland, travelling there with his brother Henry on multiple occasions from England. In 1768, Loftus resigned his commission in the Army and relocated to Ireland at the same time that his former commander at the Battle of the Plains of Abraham, George Townshend, was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. Weeks later Loftus was elected to the Irish Parliament for Fethard (Wexford), a borough seat in the pocket of his distant undertaker cousin, the Honourable Henry Loftus. Loftus served as a Member of Parliament for the boroughs of Fethard from 1768 to 1775 and Clonmines from 1776 until his death in 1781. Both boroughs were controlled by his cousin, who commanded up to ten seats in the Irish House of Commons constituting a powerful voting bloc known as the Loftus Squadron.
Loftus was said to have been a "worthy man" and a good attender of Parliament but already at the age of forty-six, was reportedly infirm. He voted against the "Popery Bill" in 1774 and again in 1778 after it had been returned from the English Parliament. By 1774, his attendance at Parliament became intermittent and he was granted an annual pension. Despite his infirmity, Loftus was again returned to Parliament for the Loftus Squadron in 1776 and was rewarded the office of the collector of taxes for Dundalk. Loftus supported the Government for the rest of his life, voting against Modification of Poyning's Law.
Loftus died at his house in Dorset Street, leaving his wife Dorothy and a daughter.