In this letter the Mayor of Wexford, Nicholas Byrne, is writing back to Colonel George Arthur French, Commanding Officer of the British Army in Wexford to acknowledge his letter and to thank for his kind words about the people of Wexford. Nicholas Byrne was a Mayor of Wexford in 1916 and 1917. Sir George Arthur French (1841-1921) was born on 19th June 1841, Roscommon, Ireland. He was educated at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, and the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, and commissioned in the Royal Artillery in 1860. In 1871, at the request of the Canadian government, he was sent to Canada as a military inspector, eventually becoming head of the School of Gunnery at Kingston, Ontario. He was appointed to organize the North-West Mounted Police on its creation in 1873, and the next year he led the force on its famous march to the foothills of the Rockies. French resigned in 1876 and returned to duty in the British Army, eventually attaining the rank of major-general. The organizational skills developed in Canada were used to establish local defense forces in India and Australia. In September 1883 he was appointed Commandant of the Queensland Local Forces with the local rank of colonel, and arrived in the colony on January 4, 1884. Colonel French married Janet Clarke in 1862, daughter of the late Robert Long Innes, formerly of the 37th Regiment. Colonel French retired in 1891, and returned to England. When French retired in 1902 he received a knighthood and for the next 19 years much of his time was spent guarding the crown jewels in London, where he died on 28 July 1921.