Jacques Marcus Prevost

Jacques Marcus Prevost
9th colonial governor of Georgia
In office 1779–1779
Preceded by	Archibald Campbell
Succeeded by	James Wright
Personal details
Born	1736 Switzerland
Died	1781 (aged 44–45) Jamaica
Profession	Army officer and governor

Jacques Marc, Jacques-Marc, James Marcus or Mark Prevost (1736, Geneva – 1781) was a British Army officer of French-Swiss origin. After being commissioned in Europe, he commanded troops of the British Army in North America and the West Indies, including during the French and Indian War, the North American front of the Seven Years' War.

Prevost was recalled to service during the American Revolutionary War, when he served briefly as British governor of Georgia in 1778 after the British occupied Savannah, Georgia. He also served more than once in the West Indies and died in Jamaica of wounds suffered earlier in the war.

Prevost was born in 1736 in French-speaking Switzerland to a family originating in Savoy. He had eight siblings, including elder brothers Augustine (born 1723) and Jacques Prevost (born 1725) (he likely had a distinguishing middle name; Jacques was frequently used as a given name in many families.) The two elder brothers both served in the army of the King of Sardinia, who then ruled the Dutch Republic.

Jacques Marcus appears to have joined his two brothers in the military in the Netherlands. They were recruited and commissioned as officers by Great Britain for its new Royal American Regiment: Augustine received the rank of major, Jacques as a colonel, and Jacques Marcus as a captain. In the Thirteen colonies, Britain recruited German and Swiss immigrant settlers as soldiers for the Regiment after General Benjamin Braddock's defeat in 1755 in western Pennsylvania in the French and Indian Wars. Britain was threatened by war with France as part of the Seven Years' War in Europe.

...
Wikipedia