Francis McLean

Francis McLean was a British army officer who served in continental Europe, the Caribbean, Portugal and North America. During the American Revolution he commanded British forces in Nova Scotia and established Fort George at Majabigwaduce, in present-day Maine. In 1779 he held the unfinished position against the much larger Penobscot Expedition until a Royal Navy relief force arrived, producing one of the most severe American defeats of the war. He died at Halifax in 1781.

McLean’s defence of the Penobscot position in 1779 succeeded largely because the American expedition failed to coordinate its land and naval forces before British relief arrived. The resulting destruction of the American flotilla made the campaign one of the costliest naval disasters suffered by the United States during the Revolution. McLean remained in British service in Nova Scotia until his death two years later.

In Bernard Cornwell’s The Fort, In the summer of 1779, Brigadier-General Francis McLean lands in Penobscot Bay with a small British force and begins building Fort George at Majabigwaduce.