We've got another birthday boy!
Major John Baddeley of the 7th Queen's Own Light Dragoons who turns 246 today!
The then-18-month-old may have just been the only thing a certain General Sir Henry Clinton ever conquered during the American Revolutionary War (aside from the heart of the little chap's mother, of course).
Because we've no known representation of John, here's one made by me:
...And in case you wondered if I was exaggerating or grating a little too much cheese here: Clinton, until the very end of his life, thought he was guilty of killing John's biological father who was, let's say, not exactly a contestant for either Father or Husband of the Year- Clinton had thought of
"putting him forward in the battle, as wits have said, [but] I removed him from it even while his reg[iment] was in the hottest; and, if by accident or debauchery he died afterwards of a fever, that can’t be imputed to me."
Clinton had, against his darkest fantasies, refrained from sending him into battle out of a notion of guilt and instead decided to simply find the nuisance and sole obstacle to his private happiness a post somewhere far, far away from New York (South Carolina, to be precise)- where the latter had the audacity to kick the bucket, but, as it turned out, was not much missed- not by his widow, and not by his son...