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He was appointed tutor at Yale in 1739, and continued in that office three years, when he devoted himself to the profession of the law, and became eminent. In civil life, he was employed to adjust a disputed boundary between Massachusetts and Connecticut, and held the offices of Representative to the Assembly, and member of the Council. In 1755 he was appointed Major-General and Commander-in-Chief of the Connecticut forces, and was in service throughout the French war. In the battle of Lake George, Sir William Johnson, of New York, who commanded, was soon wounded; when Lyman maintained the conflict for five hours, and was himself personally exposed the whole time. But Sir William Johnson obtained the rewards of the splendid victory which was achieved over the French by the Colonial troops on this occasion. In 1758 General Lyman served with Abercrombie, and was with the gallant and estimable Lord Howe when he was killed. In 1762 Lyman was again engaged in the important enterprise against Havana, and was in command of the Colonial forces employed in the expedition. His wisdom, integrity, bravery, and military skill, won universal commendation. Several British officers, who had been his associates, solicited him to visit England after the peace; and, having connected himself with a company composed principally of Colonial officers and soldiers who had been engaged in the war, and whose object was to obtain a grant of lands of the British Government on the Mississippi and Yazoo, he accordingly went to the mother country, in 1763, as agent of these persons, who styled themselves "Military Adventurers." He remained in England for eleven years, in all the misery, suspense, anxiety, delay, and false promises of attendance upon the Court, and a victim to the suffering which ever awaits the endeavors of a sensitive mind, employed in an arduous and unsuccessful undertaking. In a word, he wellnigh sunk into hopeless imbecility; and, rather than return to America without accomplishing his purpose, he resolved to remain and die in England. But, about the year 1774, the grant was obtained. Many of the original projectors were then dead, and others had become too advanced in life, or so changed in circumstances, as to have lost their desire to emigrate to a wilderness. But General Lyman, soon after arriving in Connecticut from his embassy, resolved upon carrying through an enterprise that had cost him so much time and anxiety; and, in 1775, accompanied by his oldest son and a few settlers, he arrived upon the land which he had secured for himself and others of the company. His preparatory arrangements were hardly made before he died.²