Haldimand was born, baptised and died in Yverdon, Switzerland as François-Louis-Frédéric Haldimand and spent his early military career, from 1740 to 1756, in Europe; in the army of the King of Sardinia, the Prussian Army, and then with the Swiss Mercenaries.
He became Governor of the Province of Quebec (which at the time included what is now Ontario) in 1778 serving through the American Revolution. Haldimand built up Quebec's defenses and sent raiding parties (Carleton's Raid (1778) and the Burning of the Valleys in 1780) into the rebellious American colonies. At the end of the American Revolution he helped settle American refugees who became known as United Empire Loyalists in what became first New Brunswick and later Ontario and also settled the Six Nations in Canada. In the summer of 1784 he was recalled to England, but it was two years before a successor was made.
