Colonel of Artillery in Marlbrough's armies and served as a mercenary with other armies. The son of Jacob Richards as in the DNB, not Solomon Richards. John Richards, the soldier first appears in the records in 1690. ref for Baptism: PR of St Martins in the Fields: IGI ref 6901249. Col John Richards's diary References are: British Museum Stowe Manuscript 467, F38 - his diary British Museum Stowe MSS 471 f15 - his narrative of the attack on Montjuic - a fort on the s.Side of Barcelona 6 Sept 1705 (OS) or 17 Sept (NS) Letters of Col John Richards at Almeida Stowe MSS 468, f 73-75 (ref from Vol 1 of England under Queen Anne p 405 Blenheim. Extract from "The Richards Brothers" by F.J.Hebbert in the Irish Sword 1975 John Richards (1669-1709) was the most remarkable of the brothers. It is hoped that this article may draw attention to certain obscurities about his early career which still await elucidation. While the rest of the family was protestant, John was throughout his life a Roman Catholic, which may account for his being disinherited by his father, and he first appears as an officer who had accompanied Balldearg O'Donnell from Spain to Ireland in July 1690. O'Donnell's position was peculiar since his adopted country, Spain, was at that time allied with England and Holland -against France, and it may be that John's Spanish commission, as we1l as the ties of kinship, helped when, as the Jacobite cause collapsed, he was engaged, as secretary and adjutant-general to O'Donnell, in negotiations with Ginkel, who wrote that the representative sent him was 'the brother of Colonel Richards'. He evidently carried out the delicate business of peace negotiations satisfactorily, and on 4 February 1691 he was paid £200 'in consideration of his good service in Ireland and for his present support'. On15 March 1692, 'the Queen considering the good service performed by Captain John Richards desires you to give him a pension of £200 per annum payable out of the Royal Oak Lottery, the first quarterly payment to be made on Lady Day next'. Various passes were issued to John Richards during the next few years, with his servant John Leake, on what business it is not clear and, finally, one of 2 April 1696 enabling him to embark for Holland to go to Venice with Jacob. We have John's lengthy account of his travels written with a very observant eye, a certain dry wit and quite wide historical and classical know1edge. He travelled from Harwich to Brill, having avoided the Dunkirk privateers, and thence to Rotterdam, with a rapid tourist's glance at Amsterdam, Delft, Leyden and Utrecht-'a most pleasant place and the handsomest ayre in the Country', following which he travelled up the Rhine to join Jacob on Easter Day, continuing by boat receiving 'good entertainment' on the way, not forgetting to notice the Ehrenbreitstein 'as the most impregnable fortress in Europe'. He comments professionally on the recent successful defence of Rheinfels, a matter on which Vauban himself was very outspoken on the other side. This is as good a point as any to notice that a number of Vauban's papers are in the Richards collection, and it would be interesting to know how they were acquired. It is the writer's guess that they may have done so by way of the Huguenot engineer Goulon, who served under Vauban and left the French for the Imperial service after the siege of Luxembourg in 1684 and a manuscript of whose memoirs is identifiable in the Richards papers. The rest of the journey to Venice contains many interesting asides, among which the insular comment-'in my opinion that of Westminster is in every way larger, though not so dirty'-dismisses the claims of the Paduan Palazzo del Regione to be the largest roof in Europe unsupported by columns. On 17 June they sailed from Venice in a convoy bound for the Morea, arriving after a rather eventful voyage at Corfu, where the citadel, 'the most considerable fortress now remaining to the Republic in the Levant', was favourably commented on. John enjoyed his glass of wine, commending 'especially the white, and in a flasque it will keep'. At Zante they were entertained by Mr. Paule, the British consul, and landed at Nauplia. Serious work, the consolidation of recent Venetian gains, repairing and building defences, began at Corinth, but this did not stop John from commenting on St. Paul's visit to the city, extant classical remains, and the decay of the local agriculture. Reports on the local problems stress -the shortage of fascines, pickets and tools. A tour inland, escorted by 100 dragoons and 200- Sclavonian foot, took them to the hill passes and to the 'fountain of Helicon' where they 'halted and bated'. On 5 September John saw his first Turks 'after their usual manner riding up and down without any order or discipline, and often time within musket shott of our lines'. The Turks were better mounted than the Venetians '. . and more adroyt than we are especially with the Cimitar, with which they will at one stroke cut a Man Downe. They have pistols but seldom make use of them?' Various military comments follow, and some remarks on the fortifications of Navarino and its earlier history in classical times. John's account of their return to Venice and subsequent tour of Italy is extremely readable and at times. very amusing, and they returned to duty via Brindisi to resume work on fortifications in Greece in 1699. When Jacob returned to Venice, John went off on his own on a tour of the islands and finally Constantinople and other Turkish cities, which he thoroughly enjoyed. He made friends easily, and lost no opportunity of seeing not only fortifications but churches ruins and anything of interest. One or two highlights may. be quoted: of the Cretans ? '?their Virtues were accompanied with other Vices by the very Ancients esteemed a very lazy people?..this opinion was confirmed by St Paul and I am afeared they keep up this character still'. And of the wine in Rhodes, which was 'not comparable to the Italian. French or German Wines, it is true these are generous strong-bodied Wines?' a surprisingly modern comment. He was annoyed at missing a visit to the site of Troy, but otherwise had a most interesting time and finally set out to join his brother for their brief reunion in 1701. After Jacob's death he continued to command the artillery in the next campaign under Frederick Augustus. The accession of Queen Anne lost him the pension granted by Queen Mary, and he went on leave to England in the hope of getting his pension renewed and 'labouring to get rid of my Polish Monarch', having by now some distaste for- that service. A petition of his, referred to the lord high treasurer, stated his services as a negotiator in Ireland 'as is well known to the Duke of Marlborough and Secretary Nottingham', and that his pension having ceased he 'had to go abroad and is now a Colonel of Artillery in the Polish service where he is ready to give any testimony of his fidelity that may be asked of him'. His claim was disallowed, but it seems that his friends in government circles had other plans, since in October 1703-John-wrote to the envoy in Poland, Mr Robinson, that he would have 'long since returned, was I not commanded -to stay here until further-Orders. The King of Portugal having in virtue of the late Treaty, Demanded several General Officers one of Artillery my friends at Court proposed it to me, but I told them yt. as a Roman Catholic I was not qualified to take the Queen's Commission, and as a Man of Honour I could not quit the King of Poland's service ,without his leave?' However, the Portuguese envoy and the secretary of state resolved the problem, and Mr. Robinson obtained the king of Poland's permission, while the penal laws were circumvented by conferring on John a Portuguese commission as major-general at 20s a day and six months pay in advance, later raised to 30s a day with back pay to October 1703. John Richards's service in the Peninsula, nominally with the Portuguese army, will be familiar to students of the War of the Spanish Succession in Spain, and his correspondence from 1706 to his death on 3 March 1709 is a most valuable primary source widely drawn on by historians. He took the field in May 1704, with the Allied army, taking part in several actions in Portugal under Don Minas and later, Galway, commanding the artillery besieging the frontier fortress of Albuquerque. The problems of organizing the Portuguese artillery were considerable, and many less patient, and industrious officers would have given up in despair, but he succeeded ultimately in getting good service out of his artillery. In 1705 he was on the staff of the eccentric and still controversial earl of Peterborough at the siege of Barcelona. The critical moment of the siege is graphically described during the assault on .the fort of Montjuich. Following the death of the capable 'and popular Prince George of Hesse-Darmstadt, '?.Lord Charlemont, who was next immediately in command, and, I believe, a little strange to such sort of work, was easily persuaded to quit the works we had gained and to retreat, as he actually did, and at that time I do not believe we had 400 left of the 1,000 men that marched out with us. Some mistook the way and never came up; others were so weary that they could not; but above all the want of water was extreme, which I attribute to be the great reason of our many desertions. At this juncture Lord Peterborough returned, who seeing what was done, fell into the horriblest passion that ever man was in and. with a great deal of bravery and resolution led us back again to the posts we had quitted' His fluency in Spanish and clear appreciation of military problems led to his being increasingly regarded as an expert on the state of the war in the Peninsula, and he was recalled after the capture of Barcelona to report first to Marlborough -and later to the privy council where he seems to have expressed himself strongly on various matters. His respect for Peterborough's qualities as a man of action did not extend to all aspects of that nobleman as a general officer When he returned to Spain, accompanied by his brother Michael, he was appointed governor of Alicante. This was a post of some importance since he had to ensure that this port functioned efficiently as a supply base for the field army, and this entailed working with the navy as well as with the local authorities and the military command. Galway's disastrous defeat before Almanza made the coastal fortresses of Denia and Alicante certain objectives for the advancing Bourbon army, and John Richards threw himself with enthusiasm into making Alicante as defensible as possible. The town was much smaller than it is to-day, and was defended by a bastioned wall on the land side and a medieval wall on the waterfront. Towering above the town was the castle, on an impregnable 400-foot rock. In 1706 an allied force had captured it after a bombardment from the sea, only possible by using bomb-vessels, since ships' guns were ineffective against a land target at that elevation. but the reason why the courageous and enterprising Irish governor, Mahony had to surrender was the poor morale of his Neapolitan garrison who finally, in a gesture amounting to mutiny, poisoned the castle water supply. With command of the sea and a castle adequately garrisoned and supplied with ordnance, food and ammunition, and with a large new underground water cistern, John Richards was hopeful of sustaining a long defence. The government of Charles III - the Archduke Charles - in Barcelona was not over-generous nor were naval commanders ('Sir Geo. Byng does not think fit to unfurnish his ships'), but Richards remained confident. In 1708 an assault on Denia failed, but in 1709 the Bourbon armies were more successful, when the French General D'Asfeld, an engineer trained by Vauban, and a future director-general of fortifications, arrived at Denia with 12,000 men and a large siege train, and invested the town on 1 November. Richards did what he could to reinforce and supply the local commander, Colonel Perceval, but the town was finally surrendered seventeen days later, and the successful Bourbon army advanced to secure the last Allied fortress in Valencia. The town was barely defensible, and was soon surrendered with the honours of war. Richards, still reasonably confident of relief by sea, continued to hold out in the castle. D'Asfeld commenced mining operations, and, as the work progressed, offered in the courteous manner of the times, honourable terms of surrender, inviting Richards to send officers to see what was in store for them. The final decision to wait for the explosion was no hurried one; in one letter to Michael, John wrote ' . . they have been now near three months at work and I judge them to be if not under at least very near our great cistern. . . God Almighty assisting me, you may depend upon it that for my part I shall stand it and in this case every man can only answer for himself. This I hint to you because I am told there are some people not so buff and indeed it is an uncomfortable noise to hear people at work night and day under our feet . . .' A document that explains the final decision was appended to his brother's letter by Michael, discussing the arguments for and against surrender. By now the mine contained something over 50 tons of powder and, his plans completed, D'Asfeld made a final offer under flag of truce. On balance, John Richards felt that the mine would not have the effect claimed and that the defences would remain intact, and, still confident that relief by sea would be coming he decided to await the explosion of the mine. To reassure his men Richards, having seen the bulk of the garrison into safe positions, placed the minimum guards needed to prevent the enemy rushing the defences once the mine had been sprung. He then literally stood his ground with some of his staff on the castle parade. The tremendous explosion took place and cost them all their lives, with forty-two of their soldiers, but the structural damage to the castle was slight and the defence continued under the surviving senior officer, Lt.-Col. D'Albon. Forty-three days later the relieving force under Byng and Stanhope arrived, and it is sad to relate that their only action was to negotiate terms of honourable surrender, the garrison to march out bag and baggage, drums beating, colours flying, and two cannon, and to embark for Minorca. A French account of the siege pays tribute to the resolute defence of the castle, although the author did feel that Richards could have surrendered with propriety before the mine was sprung. The castle was reported to contain thirty-three guns in good order, with fifteen spare carriages and heavy lifting tackle and an abundance of other workshop equipment, together with substantial quantities of ammunition and, despite damage to the great cistern, water for 40 days. All this indicates the considerable efforts made by Richards to make Alicante defensible and to retain this base in Valencia The local population had favoured the cause of the archduke; though not with the separatist fervour of the Catalans, and with allied reinforcements coming to Barcelona, this foothold on the Valencian coast was worth retaining. Finally, it should be observed that with quite small numbers of garrison troops, John Richards had occupied the greatly superior Bourbon forces for a considerable time and thus aided the allied cause elsewhere. Quotation from England under Queen Anne by G.M.Trevelyan Trevelyan refers to papers in the Stowe mss in the British Museum and the quotation is from the 1941 edition Vol 2 p 71 "His - Charles Mordaunt - Earl of Peterborough's - confidant at the moment was Col John Richards, a Roman Catholic officer of artillery who being unable to hold an English Commission, had seen service under Venice and Poland, and was at present serving the Portugese in order the better to help his native countrymen. His heart was entirely English, and his professional abilities were supported by a calm and excellent judgement, and by a thorough knowledge of the language and character of Spaniards. He could see all round his chief, whom he declared to be "so very inconsistent as not to remain two days in the same sentiments". His unprejudiced evidence, based on a first-hand knowledge of the facts quite dispose of the rival legends, which have so long obscured the capture of Montjuic - the citadel of Barcelona, Sept 1705.[Richards.GED]