Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 13.djvu/374

 than in later likenesses, in silvered corslet, lace neckcloth, and dark wig. General Hugh Mackay of the Dutch service, who knew Cutts well, described him a year or two later as ‘pretty tall, lusty and well shaped, an agreable companion, with abundance of wit, affable and familiar, but too much seized with vanity and self-conceit,’ which was, no doubt, a truthful epitome of his character. Cutts was one of ‘the gentlemen of most orthodox principles in church and state’ who returned to England with William of Orange at the revolution, his rank being that of lieutenant-colonel in a regiment of English foot, formed in Holland by Colonel Sidney, afterwards Earl of Romney, and colonel 1st foot guards. Of this regiment—which was not one of the six so-called ‘Holland’ regiments, and was disbanded later—Cutts soon became colonel, but his name has not been found in the War Office (Home Office) military entry books of the period. In January 1690 he was ordered to complete his regiment to a hundred men per company, and in March proceeded with it to Ireland. Before leaving, ‘the king made him a grant of lands belonging to the jesuits in certain counties’ (Relation of State Affairs (1857), ii. 24). He served through the campaign of that year, signalised himself at the battle of the Boyne, and was wounded during the siege of Limerick. Macaulay states that at the Boyne Cutts was at the head of his regiment, since famous as the 5th fusiliers (Hist. of Engl. iii. 625). There is no proof that Cutts was ever in that regiment, and the regiment known then and after as ‘Cutts's’ foot, as stated above, was one of those afterwards disbanded. On 6 Dec. 1690, King William ‘was pleased to confer a mark of favour on Colonel John Cutts,’ by creating him Baron Cutts of Gowran in the kingdom of Ireland. About the same time the university of Cambridge conferred on him the honorary degree of LL.D. On 18 Dec. 1690, Cutts married his first wife, a widow with a large jointure. She was Elizabeth, daughter of George Clark, merchant, of London, and had been twice married before, first to John Morley of Glynde, Sussex, and secondly to John Trevor, secretary of state to Charles II. The special license is extant, and describes Cutts as a bachelor, aged twenty-nine, and the lady a widow, aged thirty. Cutts returned to the army in Ireland in July 1691, and succeeded to the command of the Prince of Hesse-Darmstadt's brigade when the prince was disabled by wounds at Aughrim. He commanded the troops that took possession of Limerick on its surrender. He afterwards went as brigadier-general to Flanders, and fought at the battle of Steinkirk, where his regiment was one of those cut to pieces in Mackay's division, and himself was grievously wounded in the foot. He returned to England on crutches, and soon after his recovery lost his wife, who died 19 Feb. 1693, her jointure of 2,500l. a year passing away to the next heir. In July the same year he was reported to be engaged to one of the queen's maids of honour, a sister of the notorious Lord Mohun (, iii. 143), but the match never took place. The same year he was appointed governor of the Isle of Wight. Extracts from a series of thirty-two letters, addressed by Cutts to his lieutenant-governor, Colonel John Dudley, afterwards governor of Massachusetts, have lately been printed by the Massachusetts Historical Society from the originals in possession of the Winthrop family. They extend over a period of ten years, and afford some insight into Cutts's ways. Dissimilar as they were in many respects—for Dudley had been bred to the ministry and had much of the puritan about him—the men were both eager place-hunters, and conscious that they were necessary to each other. Cutts is constantly stimulating Dudley's zeal by promises of preferment, and exacting in return all manner of services, not only in managing the municipal and electoral constituencies of the island, but in paying his bills, pacifying his creditors, who appear to have never been wanting, and even bottling his wine. Now and then Dudley is taken to task with some vivacity, but the coolness never endured long. Unfortunately the lieutenant-governor's replies are not forthcoming (Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc. 1886). Cutts was one of the brigadiers in the disastrous Brest expedition of 1694. He accompanied Carmarthen in his daring reconnaissance, in a small galley, of the French position in Camarets Bay (, Marquis of Carmarthen, Narrative Brest Exp. p. 14), and was wounded at the third landing at Brest. When General Talmash died of his wounds, Cutts succeeded him as colonel of the Coldstream guards on 3 Oct. 1694. On the death of Queen Mary in December of the same year, Cutts, who appears to have indulged his poetic tastes amidst all the distractions of court and camp, wrote a monody, a rather stilted effusion, which appears in ‘State Poems,’ p. 199. In the spring of 1695 Cutts was sent to Flanders as one of the commissioners for settling the bank of Antwerp, and in the summer he was engaged at the siege of Namur, where his splendid courage throughout the siege, and particularly at the final assault, gained him the honourable nickname of ‘the Salamander’ (,