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.
French was appointed to organise the North-West Mounted Police on its creation in 1873, and the next year he led the force on its famous March West to suppress the illegal whiskey trade in the wake of the Cypress Hills Massacre.
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 defence 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 4 January 1884. Colonel French married, in 1862, Janet Clarke, daughter of the late Robert Long Innes, formerly of the 37th Regiment. Colonel French retired in 1891, and returned to England, but was back in Australia as commandant in North South Wales from 1896 until 1902.[1]