Educated at the College of St Omer, he entered the Society of Jesus in 1759, and was ordained priest at Rome, in 1770.
The Austro-Belgic government, in its execution of the decree of suppression, kept him imprisoned for some months after the closing of the college.
Returning to England, he became a tutor in the family of Thomas Weld, and chaplain at Lulworth Castle, where he assisted at the consecration of Bishop Carroll, in 1790.
Summoned to Rome for the XXth General Congregation (1820) and election of the Superior General of the Jesuits, he died suddenly in Jougne (France), on his journey homeward, and, through mistaken information to his mission and identity, he was buried with full military honours.
A large collection of the letters which the interchanged, originals or copies, exists at Stonyhurst and Georgetown College, as also in the Baltimore diocesan archives.