Career
In 1745, when John was sixteen, he informally joined the 46th Regiment, which his older brother Harold had raised to restore the family's reputation. John mainly served as a forager and a scout during this time. He came across Jamie and Claire Fraser while exploring the hills surrounding the English campsite. In the mistaken belief that Claire was a prisoner of the Scots, he gave them information about his regiment to protect her honor. This led to a raid on his camp by the Scots and so to most of Grey's own regiment "he had been a pariah and an object of scorn." John was still with the regiment at the Battle of Culloden, but prevented from fighting by his brother.
In 1755, by which time he had risen to the rank of major, John served a year and a half as the Governor of Ardsmuir Prison, Scotland, where he met Jamie Fraser again. In 1756, after the prison was successfully rebuilt into a fortress, John arranged for Fraser to be paroled to Helwater, under the eye of family friend Lord Dunsany, instead of being transported to the American colonies.
In 1757, while in London, he helped solve the murder of a fellow soldier, who was suspected of espionage. Later that year, he accepted a posting as the English liaison officer to the Imperial Fifth Regiment of Hanoverian Foot.
In 1758, after John returned to the 46th Regiment, it was assigned to fight under Duke Ferdinand of Brunswick and chased French and Austrian troops around in the Rhine Valley for weeks until the Battle of Krefeld. During the battle, John took charge of a gun crew that had lost its commander and the cannon blew up after a few shots. The Royal Commission of Inquiry started an investigation over the blown-up cannon and John was called to stand before a tribunal a few months after the battle.
In 1765, John, by then a lieutanent-colonel, had retired from military life and was appointed the Governor of Jamaica. He eventually left Jamaica for Virginia and settled down there.
Read more about this topic: Lord John Grey
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