Career
He sat in the House of Commons as a Tory from 1820 to 1829. Nightingall entered the army in 1787. He served in India and in England with Lord Cornwallis and was at Puerto Rico with Ralph Abercromby in 1797 and at the San Domingo with Thomas Maitland in December 1797.
He arranged the evacuation of Portuguese-au-Prince.
He commanded the 4th Battalion in Ireland during Cornwallis" Viceroyalty, and was on the staff when the latter went as Ambassador-Extraordinary to France in 1802. He was also Military Secretary during Cornwallis" Viceroyalty in India.
In the mid-1800s he was stationed in the British penal colony of New South Wales, where he commanded the 73rd Regiment. In 1809 he declined an offer to become Governor, and instead went again to India, where he was the Commander-in-chief of the Bombay Army from 24 February 1816 to 9 October 1819.