months before expressed his intention
to support the Earl of Harrowby's views,
and vote for the second reading of the
Bill.

Of his extraordinary absence of mind,
and his unfortunate habit of "thinking
aloud," many amusing anecdotes have
been in circulation. It is a fact that,
when he was in the Foreign Office, he
directed a letter, intended for the French
to the Russian Ambassador, shortly be-
fore the affair of Navarino; and, strange
as it may appear, it attained him the
highest honour. Prince Lieven, who
never makes any mistakes of the kind,
set it down as one of the cleverest
ruses ever attempted to be played off,
and gave himself immense credit for
not falling into the trap laid for him
by the sinister ingenuity of the English
Secretary. He returned the letter with
a most polite note, in which he vowed,
of course, that he had not read a line of
it, after he had ascertained that it was
intended for Prince Polignac; but
could not help telling Lord Dudley, at
an evening party, that he was " trop fin,
but that diplomatists of his (Prince
L.'s) standing, were not so easily
caught.'

One of the earliest symptoms of his
Lordship's unfortunate malady was that
of asserting himself to be married. He
is said to have expressed great affection
and solicitude for his imaginary Coun-
tess. A report prevailed among the
higher orders, that his Lordship was a
suitor for the hand of one of the accom-
plished daughters of the Earl of Bever-
ley; but that his overtures met with a
most decided rejection from her Lady-
ship.

The administration of the Earl
of Dudley's affairs remains, it is said,
for the present, in the hands of Mr.
Littleton, the member for Staffordshire,
as one of the executors. It was in ho-
nour of the début of Miss Littleton,
now Viscountess Newark, that his Lord-
ship gave his Olla Podrida fête, in Park
Lane, in the early part of the season of

1832.

All the Earl's titles have expired
with him, except the Barony of Ward;
which has devolved on the Rev. Hum-
ble Ward, Rector of Himley, Stafford-
shire, who is descended from the Rev.
William Ward, also Rector of Himley,
and of King's Swinford, younger bro-
ther to John, who succeeded to the title
of Lord Ward in 1740, and was created
Viscount Dudley and Ward in 1763.
The ancient Barony of Dudley (by
writ, 1342) had separated from the
Wards in the first-mentioned year, in

favour of Ferdinand Dudley Lea, the
heir general; and on his death, in 1757,
it fell in abeyance among his sisters.
Gentleman's Magazine.

F.

Charles,

FAHIE, Sir William
K. C. B. and K. F. M., Vice Admiral
of the Blue; January 11, 1833, at
Bermuda, in his 70th year.

This officer served with great credit
as a Lieutenant during the West India
campaign, in 1794. He subsequently
commanded the Woolwich 44, on the
Leeward Island station; and was posted
into the Perdrix, of 22 guns and 153
men, February 2. 1796. On the 11th
of December, 1798, he fell in with, and,
after an action of forty-two minutes,
captured, L'Armée d'Italie, a French
privateer of 18 guns and 117 men.
He afterwards escorted a fleet of mer-
chantmen from the Leeward Islands
to England in the Hyæna, of 28 guns.
In the summer of 1805 he was ap-
pointed to the Amelia frigate, and from
her removed into the Ethalion; in which
he assisted at the capture of the Dutch
West India Islands, in December, 1807.

Captain Fahie's next appointment
was to the Belleisle, of 74 guns, one of
the squadron employed at the reduction
of Martinique, in February, 1809. He
subsequently commanded the Pompée,
another line-of-battle ship; and on the
16th of April, after a long and arduous
pursuit, and close action of an hour
and a quarter, in which he was partially
joined by the Castor frigate, he cap-
tured the French ship Hautpoult, of 74
guns and 680 men, between 80 and 90
of whom were killed and wounded.
The loss sustained by the British
amounted to 11 slain and 41 wounded;
among the latter were Captain Fahie
and his First Lieutenant. The Haut-
poult was a perfectly new ship, and was
one of a fleet which had sailed from
L'Orient in February preceding, ex-
pressly for the relief of Martinique;
she was taken into the British navy,
with her name changed to the Aber-
cromby, and Captain Fahie was ap-
pointed to command her.

Early in 1810, an armament under
the orders of Sir Alexander Cocb-
rane and Lieut.-General Beckwith,
proceeded against Guadaloupe, where
Captain Fahie superintended the de-
barkation of the first division of the
army, and commanded a detachment
of seamen on shore; whose services

were highly appreciated by Sir George
Beckwith, the military Commander-in-
Chief. After the surrender of Guada-
loupe, on the 6th of February, possession
was taken of the islands of St. Martin,
St. Eustatia, and Saba. This latter
service was most ably performed by
Captain Fahie (in conjunction with
Brigadier-General Harcourt), Sir Alex-
ander having given him the temporary
rank of Commodore during the ex-
pedition.

Soon after this event, by which the
flags of France and Holland were ex-
pelled from the Antilles, Captain Fahie
returned to England. He continued to
command the Abercromby, on the Lis-
bon station and in the Channel, during
the remainder of the war. At the ge-
neral promotion, in 1814, he was ap.
pointed a Colonel of the Royal Marines;
and in the following year he was no-
minated a Companion of the Order of
the Bath.

Subsequently to the escape of Buona-
parte from Elba, we find Captain Fahie
in the Malta 84, co-operating with the
Austrian General, Baron Laner, in the
siege of Gaëta, which was defended
with great obstinacy until the 8th of
August, 1815, on which day the allied
forces took possession of it in the name
of the King of the Two Sicilies; who,
in return for this service, bestowed on
Captain Fahie the insignia of a Knight
of the Order of St. Ferdinand and Merit,
which he obtained permission to accept,
March 9. 1816.

Captain Fabie was advanced to the
rank of Rear-Admiral in 1819, and
early in the ensuing year appointed
Commander-in-Chief at the Leeward
Islands. In December, 1821, he re-
lieved Vice-Admiral Colpoys in the
command at Halifax. He was pro-
moted to be a Vice- Admiral in 1830,
and nominated a Knight Companion of
the Bath.

He became a widower in April, 1817.
-Marshall's Royal Naval Biography.
FOOTE, Sir Edw. James, K. C. B.,
Vice-Admiral of the Red; May 23.
1833, at his residence, Highfield House,
Southampton, aged 66.

Sir Edward was the fourth and
youngest son of the Rev. Francis Hende
Foote, of Charlton Place, in Kent, and
Rector of Boughton Malherb, in that
county, by Catherine, daughter of Ro-
bert Mann, Esq., of Linton, and sister
to Sir Horace Mann, Bart. and K. B.

In 1791, Captain Foote was Com-
mander of the Atalante sloop in the

East Indies; from which he exchanged
into the Ariel, and returned home in
August, 1792. At the commencement
of the ensuing war he was appointed to
the Thorn 16; and was promoted to
Post rank, June 7. 1794.

Toward the end of the same year, he
obtained the command of the Niger 32,
in which he assisted at the capture of a
French convoy, off Jersey, May 9. 1795.
On the 12th April, 1796, he destroyed
L'Ecurieul 18, near the Penmarks; and,
Feb. 14. 1797, the Niger was one of
the three frigates present at Sir John
Jervis's action off Cape St. Vincent.

In October, 1797, he was appointed
to the Seahorse 46, in which he cruised
for some time on the coast of Ireland,
and assisted at the capture of Le Bel-
liqueux, a French privateer of 18 guns.
He afterwards returned to the Medi-
terranean; where, on the 27th June,
1798, off the Island of Pantellaria, he
captured, after a close action of eight
minutes, La Sensible, of 36 guns; in
which was a French General of Division
bound to Toulon, with an account of
the capture of Malta, by the forces
under General Buonaparte. Among
the spoils the Frenchmen were carrying
off, was found a brass cannon formerly
taken from the Turks, and which Louis
XIV. had presented to the Knights of
Malta; and also a model of a galley,
of silver gilt: Buonaparte had already
commenced his plunder of works of
art.

In 1799 Captain Foote, in the Sea-
horse, took charge of the blockade of
the bay of Naples, by order of Lord Nel-
son. Whilst employed on this service,
he concurred with Cardinal Ruffo, the
Sicilian minister, in signing a treaty
with the insurgents; but which Lord
Nelson thought proper to annul, on the
ground that "Captain Foote had been
deceived by Cardinal Ruffo." These
transactions gave rise to various ac-
counts, and various reflections upon the
parties concerned whilst by some it
was considered that Lord Nelson, in
the height of his self-confidence, had ex-
ceeded his authority, by others they were
deemed to cast disgrace upon Captain
Foote.

Some years after, a person
named Harrison, in writing a Life of
Lord Nelson, thought proper, like many
other biographers, so warmly to take up
the part of the hero of his narrative, as
to presume to make some severe and
unjust observations on the conduct of
Capt. Foote; who replied in a pam-
phlet containing a " Vindication of his

Conduct." It is evident that Lord
Nelson himself did not attach any grave
censure upon Captain Foote's conduct,
from the letter which he wrote to him
shortly after, in which he declared: "I
can assure you, my dear Sir, that it
affords me infinite pleasure to convey to
you this distinguished mark of his Si-
cilian Majesty's approbation." This
was an elegant snuff-box, with the
initials F. R. in small diamonds, and
worth about 300 or 400 guineas; sent
by the King in return "for most im-
portant services, when left with the
command in the bay of Naples, when
Lord Nelson was obliged to order Com-
modore Troubridge to join him; and
for taking Castel à Mare."

In consequence of the Seahorse get-
ting on shore off Leghorn, and sus-
taining very considerable damage, she
was obliged to return to England in
the autumn of 1799.

In May, 1800, she was again sent to
the Mediterranean, conveying thither
Rear-Admiral Sir Richard Bickerton,
and General Sir Ralph Abercromby:
the latter returned to England in her,
in September following. During the
summer of 1801, Captain Foote was in
attendance on their Majesties at Wey.
mouth. He afterwards escorted ten
sail of East India ships bound to Cal-
cutta; and, on his return, was finally
paid off, in October 1802.

For several years, Captain Foote com-
manded, first, the Princess Augusta,
and afterwards the Royal Charlotte,
yachts. He was promoted to the rank
of Rear-Admiral in 1812; and shortly
after hoisted his flag, as second in com-
mand, at Portsmouth, which station he
retained until Feb. 1815. He was pro-
moted to the rank of Vice-Admiral in
1821, and nominated a K. C. B. May

19. 1831.

Sir E. J. Foote was twice married.
His first wife was Nina, daughter of
Sir Robert Herries, banker, in London,
by whom he had one son, Francis, and
two daughters, Catherine, deceased, and
Caroline. He married, secondly, in
1803, Mary, eldest daughter of the late
Vice-Admiral Patton, who died at Nice
in 1816, leaving four daughters, Mary,
Elizabeth, Helena, and Anne.

He had resided for many years in the
neighbourhood of Southampton; where
he was highly respected for his mild and
gentlemanly manners.-Marshall's Royal
Naval Biography.

FRANKLIN, Sir William, M.D.,
K.C.H., and F. R.S., Principal In-

spector-General of the Army Medical
Department; October 29. 1833, at his
house in Devonshire Street, Portland
Place, in the 71st year of his age. We
hope to be able to insert a memoir of
this amiable man, and distinguished
officer, in our next volume.

G.

GOWER, Richard Hall, Esq.; at
Nova Scotia House, near Ipswich,
aged 65.

Mr. Gower was the youngest son of
the Rev. Foote Gower, M. D., a clergy-
man and physician of eminence at
Chelmsford, in Essex, and Elizabeth
his wife, who was a daughter of John
Strutt, Esq,. of Moulsham, in the same
county, and whose family have repre-
sented the borough of Malden in several
parliaments. Dr. Gower began a
history of Cheshire, his native county
which, however, he did not live to finish;
and was otherwise distinguished for his
antiquarian knowledge.

In his early youth Mr. Gower was
sent to the grammar school at Ipswich,
whence he was removed to Winchester
school; and two years afterwards he had
the misfortune to be deprived of his fa-
ther. The rigid discipline and dull
routine of scholastic exercises were little
congenial to his enterprising mind and
lively disposition; of these qualities the
senior boys, his most tyrannical masters,
availed themselves to perform predatory
excursions to the neighbouring orchards.
Leaving this seminary at the age of
thirteen, he entered into the service of
the East India Company, as a Midship-
man, on board the Essex, and became
one of the brightest ornaments of that
service. In that ship he soon attained
a knowledge of seamanship, which led,
in more mature life, to the production
of a work, entitled, "A Treatise on the
Theory and Practice of Seamanship,"
&c., that has not been surpassed by any
other on the subject.

In this voyage, which was extraor-
dinarily protracted, owing to the ship
being employed to convey troops to
some of the enemy's settlements in In-
dia, he had an insight into all the hard-
ships and dangers attendant upon a
sailor's life. While the ship, with other
Indiamen under convoy, were watering
in Port Praya Bay, they were attacked

* See the Preface to Ormerod's "His-
tory of Cheshire," vol. i. p. 11.

by a French squadron, under the com-
mand of M. Suffrein; and, although un-
prepared, and part of the crew were on
shore, they succeeded in driving the
enemy out of the Bay. During the
voyage, the Essex was entirely dis-
masted, and went to Bombay to refit.
The crew also suffered dreadfully from
sickness, which carried off the greater
portion three were sometimes buried
in a day. All these circumstances
tended to increase, rather than damp,
the ardour of the young adventurer;
who, in consequence of the reduced
number of hands, was made Captain of
the maintop, in which he lived the
greater portion of his time for many
months. It was here he commenced
the making of models, in which he after-
wards so eminently excelled; and bis
amusements, while so stationed, with
other youths under his command, were
all indicative of his ingenuity and spirit.
He had now arrived at the age of six-
teen; and, as he frequently said, he
knew a ship from keel to truck, but
how to navigate her across the bound-
less expanse of the ocean was still to
him a mystery; he therefore no sooner
landed in England, than, with the de-
termination of making himself master
of the art of navigation, he put himself
under the instruction of Mr. John
Adams, of Latimer School, Edmonton;
under whose care he made such rapid
progress, that, upon rejoining his ship
the next voyage, he went by the name
of the "young philosopher," and great
was the astonishment where he had ob-
tained all his information.

The great inaccuracy in the mode of
measuring a ship's way through the
water induced Mr. Gower to turn his
attention to the improvement of the
log, and an instrument was made under
his instructions, about the year 1788,
which effected the object with much
accuracy. In the invention of this
instrument, for which a patent was
obtained, the inventor was ably assisted
by his preceptor in astronomy and ma-
thematics.

The construction of vessels, so as to
obtain an increased rate of sailing with
stability under canvass, was long an
object with the subject of this memoir;
and as he had for some time held the
highest rank in the service short of a
command, which he refused, the better
to effect the great object of his life, he
left a service where he had been the
father of all under him, regularly giving
lectures on astronomy, &c. to the young
VOL. XVIII.

men in the ship, some of whom grate-
fully acknowledge that they derived
more benefit from him than from any
other person.

With

The result of the leisure afforded by
retirement from actual employment
was a vessel built under his directions
at Itchenor, in the year 1800, when
only house carpenters were employed
in her construction, from the difficulty
Mr. Gower anticipated from shipwrights
wishing to follow the old beaten track.
She was rigged with four masts; on
the foremost of which square sails were
hoisted, and on the others fore-and-aft
sails, of a peculiar shape, &c.
these the vessel (the Transit) sailed re-
markably fast, was dry, and held to
windward in an extraordinary manner.
In the spring of 1801 the Transit was
tried with the Osprey, a fast-sailing
sloop of war, appointed by Government
for that purpose. According to the
journal kept on that occasion, the Os-
prey being eight miles upon the lee
quarter, the Transit tacked according
to signal, bore down, hailed, and again
left her; in less than three hours the
Osprey was nearly hull down, and was
soon after lost sight of, having been
beaten before the wind, close hauled,
and with the wind quartering. This
experiment on the qualities of the
Transit was instituted with the view of
her being purchased by the East India
Company for a packet, and one of the
officers of the Master Attendants' de-
partment was stationed on board to
report on her merits; yet, notwith-
standing the success attending this
trial, Mr. Gower had the mortification
of afterwards learning that nothing
would be done on the subject, and the
vessel proceeded on her previously-in-
tended voyage, after considerable loss
had been sustained by the detention
incident to this experimental cruise.

In the year 1803 Mr. Gower mar-
ried Elizabeth, daughter of Commodore
Emptage, of the Bombay marine, and
settled at Cheshunt, in Hertfordshire,
where he continued to reside until his
final removal to Nova Scotia House,
near Ipswich, in 1817.

The work on Practical Seamanship
requiring a third edition, it was pub-
lished in 1807, with a supplemental
volume, containing an account of his
invention of the Transit. Copies of
the latter work were presented to the
leading members of the Government;
in consequence of which a vessel was
built by Government at Ipswich, in

F F

the early part of 1809, from a plan of
Mr. Gower's, but which was deviated
from in many particulars while she
was building. This vessel was intended
to be used as an advice-boat, but the
service was changed into that of warfare;
and the Admiralty, the Navy Board,
and the projector had each their separate
views of the manner of fitting and
manning her. This was occasioned by
the jealousy of those bodies, and ended
in the vessel being first shortened full
twenty feet, whereby her fast-sailing
properties were entirely destroyed, and
at last laid up in ordinary at Deptford.
What the feelings of Mr. Gower were
on this subject are fully shown in a work
published by him in 1810, entitled,
"A Narrative of a Mode pursued by
the British Government to effect im-
provements in Naval Architecture."

A third vessel, on the construction
proposed by Mr. Gower, was built in
1819, for the purpose of a yacht, for
the Hon. Mr. (now Lord) Vernon;
and though rigged on the same prin-
ciples as the original Transit, had only
three masts; this third Transit sailed,
worked, and manœuvred in a manner
that astonished and delighted all who
saw her and were competent to judge
of her powers.

Some years before this had appeared
Mr. Gower's "Remarks relative to the
Danger attendant upon Convoy, with a
Proposition for the better Protection of
Commerce; "which last object was to
be effected by stationary cruisers along
the coast, attached to signal stations
erected on the shore, to observe the
motions of the enemy, and to warn or
protect the traders.

The year 1812 called upon Mr.
Gower to employ his mechanical talents
in a direction foreign to his usual pur-
suits, and he became a candidate for
the premium of 100 guineas for a
lock "to save water, and give facility
to passage," to be applied to the Re-
gent's Canal; in the obtaining of
which he was unsuccessful, yet some
years afterwards he found that locks of
the same description had been erected
on that canal. About the same time
he built a yacht, called the Unique;
the chief objects in the construction of
which were economy of timber and
small draft of water. The following
year Mr. Gower invented a fly-boat, to
be used against the small and swift
American cruisers, then doing much
mischief in the Channel; for which he
was highly complimented by the Lords

of the Admiralty; but peace prevented
the necessity of it. He also projected
a set of signals formed by shapes in-
stead of flags.

Many of the late naval improvements
originated with him, more particularly
the round sterns; a plan for which was
delivered to the present Earl Grey, then
Lord Howick, when he filled the office
of First Lord of the Admiralty.

Being now the father of a large fa-
mily, and having met with many disap-
pointments and losses in his experiment-
al career, he felt it necessary to devote
his time to the education of his children.
"From this time," he says, in a letter to
a friend, "I ceased to follow my naval
experiments, and became almost as one
who had never known salt water; my
time being occupied by the instruction
of my children in a way peculiar to my-
self. While life exists, those years will
never be forgotten by my very dear
children; they were the rivets of affec-
tion between the parent and his offspring:
they were the best spent and most happy
days of my existence; and I can truly
say, I never acted a more wise part, as
it obtained for me all their best affec-
tions."

It would be tedious to enumerate
many plans connected with shipping,
besides those already mentioned, in
which the valuable life of Mr. Gower
was engaged; but he had the gratifica-
tion, towards its close, of seeing many
of his inventions and improvements in
naval architecture brought into practice.
The Catamaran for forming a raft was
constructed and tried by him so far back
as 1810. This floating platform may be
eminently useful in many instances, be-
sides the opportunity it would afford of
escape in cases of shipwreck. A life-
boat on a novel plan was built by him,
to be used at Landguard Fort; and one
of his earliest inventions was a tube to
convey sounds from the tops to the deck;
and, though not yet brought into ge-
neral practice on shipboard, speaking
tubes have been extensively used in ma-
nufactories and other buildings on shore.
The propeller, or floating anchor, was
another of his improvements, if not in-
ventions, and an experiment with it took
place but a few days before his death.
Many of his leisure hours were occupied
in the composition of minor articles of
a beneficial tendency on marine subjects,
and which appeared in the journals of
the day, some of which are reprinted in
a work which he lived just long enough
to complete.