Return to Britain in late 1812
Engraving of Sir John Downie for the Military Chronicle, 1813
The Caledonian Mercury of 28 November 1812 reported:
It will give the public pleasure to hear, that our countryman (Colonel) now Major-General Sir John Downie, of the Estremadura Legion, has arrived at Portsmouth, in the Spanish frigate Ephigenia, and it is hope that this gallant officer will soon recover in his native air the severe wound which he received in Spain.
He must have made a speedy recovery because on 14 December 1812 the Morning Chronicle listed General Downie amongst the participants at the Prince Regent's Levee in Carlton House, London.
The General clearly caught the imagination of the public and an engraving was produced for inclusion in the Military Chronicle from a miniature owned by the Earl of Fife. The portrait, which may have been a little idealised, clearly showed the wound on his cheek sustainted at Triana, but a later, more realistic portrait now in Madrid showed that the extent of his injury was considerably more visible. Under the portrait is a depiction of the action on the bridge at Triana.
The Caledonian Mercury of 13 March 1813 reported that the Prince Regent had granted John Downie permission to accept and wear the insignia of the Little Cross of the Royal Spanish Military Order of Merit of Charles the Third which had been conferred on him by the Council of Regency of Spain, but with the proviso that he was not permitted to claim "any style, appellation, rank, precedence or privilege appertaining to a Knight Bachelor of these realms". It was not to be long before he was awarded these privileges.
The Morning Post of 3 April 1813, reporting on the Levee held by the Prince Regent the previous day at Carlton House, noted that amongst those presented to his Highness was Brig.-General Downie, who is about to return to Spain, on his Exchange.
The Lancaster Gazette and General Advertiser for 24 April 2013 reported on the exchange:
Brigadier-General Downie has been exchanged in a manner highly honourable to him. His exchange was effected by the Marquis of Wellington, as Generalissimo of the Spanish army, who allowed for him an Intendant General, six officers, and 200 men, prisoners at Cadiz, that had been taken by the Spaniards; and these have all arrived inside the French posts in Valencia.
John was still in Britain in May 1813, when on the 19th he was knighted by the Prince Regent [London Gazette Saturday 22 May 1813]. On the 22nd he was presented with a sword at a dinner in London hosted by the Lord Lieutenant of Renfrew, the Earl of Glasgow. The inscription read:
Presented to Brigadier-General Sir John Downie by the Noblemen and Gentlemen of the county of Renfrew, in testimony of their esteem and regard.———May 22. 1813
[Caledonian Mercury 29 May 1813]
His protracted stay in Britain was almost at an end when on Tuesday 13 June 1813 he gave a grand dinner in London to the Spanish Ambassador, Earls of Glasgow and Fife and a number of others 'previous to his leaving Town for the Peninsula'. [Morning Post, 15 June 1813]
