Peace having now taken place, Major Doyle entered upon a new scene of action, and was returned member for Mullingar in the Irish parliament of 1782, when his exertions were devoted to the improvement of the establishment in Ireland, similar to Chelsea Hospital, for the relief of disabled and worn-out soldiers. The One hundred and fifth regiment was disbanded in 1784, and Major Doyle remained on half-pay from the 25th of June of that year until the war of the French Revolution in 1793, when he offered to raise a regiment of his countrymen for the service of Government; and his Royal Patron honored the corps with the appellation of “The Prince of Wales’s Irish Regiment,” and it was numbered the Eighty-seventh, of which Major Doyle was appointed Lieut.-Colonel Commandant on the 18th of September 1793, and with which he proceeded in the following year to the Continent, with the force commanded by Major-General the Earl of Moira, under whom (as Lord Rawdon) he had served in America.
Lieut.-Colonel Doyle served during the campaign of 1794 under His Royal Highness the Duke of York, and repulsed an attack of the enemy at Alost, on the 15th of July of that year, after having been twice severely wounded, being the first individual of the regiment who was wounded. His conduct was honorably noticed in His Royal Highness’s despatch. Lieut.-Colonel Doyle next proceeded to Antwerp, and ultimately to England for the recovery of his wounds, when he was afterwards appointed Secretary-at-War in Ireland.
In consequence of the reduction of the Prince of Wales’s household, Lieut.-Colonel Doyle lost the appointment of Secretary to His Royal Highness; but, notwithstanding this decrease of income, he closed his political career by a mark of generosity worthy of being recorded. His regiment being still prisoners in France, under the circumstances narrated at page 6., he collected their wives and families, and distributed five hundred pounds amongst them.
On the 3rd of May 1796, Lieut.-Colonel Doyle was promoted to be Colonel of the Eighty-seventh regiment, and proceeded in the command of a secret expedition to Holland, with the rank of Brigadier-General; but contrary winds, violent gales, and unavoidable delays, rendered the expedition fruitless, its object being to surprise and destroy the Dutch fleet in the Helder.
In 1797 Colonel Doyle was appointed a Brigadier-General upon the staff, and was ordered to Gibraltar, where he remained until the expedition was determined on for Malta and Egypt, when, having volunteered his services, he was placed on the staff under General Sir Ralph Abercromby, whom he accompanied to Minorca, Malta, and Cadiz, and was selected as one of his brigadier-generals upon the expedition to Egypt, when he shared in the actions, near Alexandria, of the 8th, 13th, and 21st of March 1801, after which he was selected by Lieut.-General Hutchinson, who succeeded to the command on the death of General Sir Ralph Abercromby, to accompany him in the expedition against Grand Cairo. He was also at the affair of Rhamanie on the 9th of May, subsequently to which the army halted at the village of Algam. On the morning of the 17th of May, when the army was encamped upon the borders of the Lybian Desert, an Arab was conducted to Brigadier-General Doyle’s tent, who brought intelligence that a body of French troops, which he computed at two thousand men, was within a few miles of the camp, with a large convoy of camels. Brigadier-General Doyle immediately requested permission to pursue the enemy with such of the cavalry as might be in the camp; and Lieut.-General Hutchinson acceding to his request, he repaired thither, where he ascertained that the Turkish cavalry had been detached a day or two before, and that a squadron of the Twelfth light dragoons had, prior to his arrival, been sent to water at some distance. As success depended on promptness and expedition, the Brigadier immediately struck into the desert in search of the enemy, without waiting for the absent squadron, which he left to an officer to bring on. After a long pursuit, the cavalry came up with the French troops, when they formed a hollow square, and commenced an irregular fire of musketry. The French commander, after some parley, was obliged to surrender on the terms offered; twenty-eight officers, five hundred and sixty-nine rank and file, two hundred horses, four hundred and sixty camels, one four-pounder, besides a stand of colours, were taken on this occasion by the detachment under Brigadier-General Doyle, which consisted of two hundred and fifty dragoons.
After the capitulation of Grand Cairo in June 1801, Lieut.-General Hutchinson (afterwards the Earl of Donoughmore) in his public despatches, expressed his obligations to Major-General Cradock and Brigadier-General Doyle, and recommended them as “officers highly deserving His Majesty’s favour.” Upon the surrender of Cairo, the country fever seized many of the troops, and Brigadier-General Doyle, with several others, was sent ill to Rosetta, where, before his recovery, he heard a rumour of an intended attack upon the French at Alexandria. Urged by this intelligence, he left his sick bed, mounted his horse, and rode forty miles through the desert, under the intense heat of an Egyptian sun, and arrived the night before the attack. In that successful enterprise he commanded, and had the good fortune to defeat the attempts subsequently made by General Menou upon a part of his position. Lieut.-General Hutchinson, on the following day, thanked him publicly in the field in the most animated manner; but in writing his official despatch, not only omitted to forward the Brigadier-General’s report of the action of the Green Hills, near Alexandria, on the 17th of August 1801, but unfortunately stated his brigade to have been commanded by another. This omission was afterwards fully rectified by the Lieut.-General, and the matter was adverted to by Lord Hobart in the House of Commons, who particularly alluded to the conduct of Brigadier-General Doyle, when moving the thanks of Parliament to the army and navy employed in Egypt.
While at Naples, after the close of the Egyptian campaign, whither Brigadier-General Doyle had proceeded for the recovery of his health, he was requested by the British ambassador to become the bearer of important despatches to the Government. This proved a service of great danger, as the country through which he passed was infested with banditti, who robbed and assassinated all who fell into their hands. His conduct on this occasion was gratefully acknowledged by His Majesty’s ministers. Upon his arrival in England, he was promoted to the rank of Major-General on the 29th of April 1802, and was placed on the staff at Guernsey, and was soon afterwards appointed Lieut.-Governor of that island, where his services during the threatened invasion of England by Napoleon were highly appreciated. Shortly afterwards the island of Alderney was added to his command. In October 1805, he was created a Baronet of the United Kingdom, and received His Majesty’s royal license to wear the Order of the Crescent conferred by the Grand Seignior, and to bear supporters to his arms, with an additional crest. On the 25th of April 1808, he was promoted to the rank of Lieut.-General.
Lieut.-General Sir John Doyle was selected to organise and command the Portuguese army, but the despatch ordering him to report himself for that purpose to the Secretary of State, was prevented from reaching him by a gale of wind that lasted for twenty-eight days, and another officer was consequently sent upon that service, which did not admit of delay. In 1812 he was nominated a Knight of the Bath, and in 1815 became a Knight Grand Cross of that Order.
Whilst the Sovereign and the Government were thus marking their approbation of the services of Lieut.-General Sir John Doyle, the inhabitants of Guernsey, whose government he had so long administered, were not slow in manifesting their gratitude for the benefits they derived from his fostering care. The States of the Island voted him an address of thanks under their great seal, and presented him with a splendid piece of plate, in the form of a vase, with suitable inscriptions; their example was followed by the militia and other public bodies with similar valuable and elegant testimonials; and when he was recalled in consequence of the reduction of the staff on the peace of 1815, they unanimously petitioned the Prince Regent that they might retain their Lieutenant-Governor, and voted the erection of a pillar, at the public expense, as a memorial of their gratitude for the services rendered by him to the island and its inhabitants.
Lieut.-General Sir John Doyle, Bart., was appointed Governor of Charlemont on the 21st of September 1818, and on the 12th of August of the following year he was advanced to the rank of General. His decease occurred in London, on the 8th of August 1834, after a lengthened service of sixty-three years.