himself at Llandaff Court, building a new house in place of the old one, which he had directed to be pulled down while he was in the Mediterranean. And the result of the trial seems to have affected him little. He believed the sentence to be iniquitous, and the outcome of parliamentary faction (cf. Walpole, Letters, i. 350)—with which, indeed, in its final stage, it seems to have had nothing to do—and he did not regard it as a reflection on his honour. In 1749, feeling himself in failing health, he settled in Bloomsbury Square, London, and there he died 2 Oct. 1751. He was buried in St. George's, Bloomsbury.
Both in his public and private capacities, by his friends and his enemies, Mathews is described as a choleric old man of the traditional John Bull type. ‘I dare to say,’ wrote Walpole to Mann, ‘Mathews believes that Providence lives upon beef and pudding, loves prize-fighting and bull-baiting, and drinks fog to the health of Old England’ (ib. i. 207); and again, speaking of the debate in 1745 in the House of Commons, ‘Mathews remains in the light of a hot, brave, imperious, dull, confused fellow’ (ib. i. 350). Horace Mann [q. v.], who felt personally injured by the diplomatic mission which had been added to Mathews's naval duties, and who stood aghast at the way in which the neutrality of Naples had been won [see Martin, William, (1696?–1756)], wrote: ‘'Tis wonderful how void Admiral Mathews is of common sense, good manners, or knowledge of the world. He understands nothing but Yes or No, and knows no medium’ (Doran, Mann and Manners, i. 157); and again: ‘Mathews has sent me a ridiculous note wrote by the claw of a great lobster, by way of thanks for a present I sent him of some Cedrati and Marzolini cheeses, which are more delicate than our cream cheeses in England. “I am much obligd to you for yr kinde present. the sweetmeats is good; so, sayes sume of my Gentlmn is the cheeses. but its to good for me. I love nothing after the French fashion”’ (ib.) As a matter of fact, however, Mathews's writing and spelling were much better than those of most naval officers or country squires of the time; and while Walpole and his correspondents spoke of him as ‘Il Furibondo,’ irascible in temper and brutal in manners, those who knew him well described him as hot-tempered indeed, and sometimes brusque, but warm-hearted, kindly, and affectionate; a clear-sighted magistrate, a capable farmer, and a keen sportsman.
He was twice married: first in 1705 to Henrietta, daughter of S. Burgess of Antigua; she died about 1740, leaving issue one son, Thomas, a major in the army; secondly, about 1745, to Millicent, daughter of Rawdon Powell of Glamorganshire. His portrait, painted during his residence at Chatham, is in the Painted Hall at Greenwich. It represents him in the laced blue coat with red facings and the red waistcoat affected by naval officers before the prescription of uniform, and gives the idea of being a good likeness. It has been engraved.
[A memoir in the Red Dragon, the National Magazine of Wales (December 1884), vi. 481, is written with familiar knowledge of the family history, by a connection of the family, who has also kindly supplied some further particulars. That in Charnock's Biog. Nav. iii. 252, is very imperfect. Official letters and minutes of the courts-martial in the Public Record Office; Low's Hist. of the Indian Navy, i. 101 et seq.; Beatson's Nav. and Mil. Memoirs, vol. i.; Doran's Mann and Manners at the Court of Florence, vol. i. freq.; Walpole's Letters (Cunningham), vol. i. freq.; Troude's Batailles Navales de la France, i. 291; Rivière's La Marine française sous le Règne de Louis XV, p. 175; Brun's Guerres maritimes de la France, Port de Toulon, tom. i. livres x. et xi.; Vida de D. Juan Josef Navarro, por D. Josef de Vargas y Ponce. The charge and finding of the court-martial have been published; so also has the correspondence between Mathews and Lestock after the battle; and there are many pamphlets relating to the Mediterranean command, mostly scurrilous and worthless; a fairly complete set of them is in the library of the Royal United Service Institution.]
MATHIAS, BENJAMIN WILLIAMS (1772–1841), divine, born on 12 Nov. 1772, was only surviving child of Benjamin Mathias, a native of Haverfordwest, Pembrokeshire, who settled in Dublin about 1760 as a woollen cloth manufacturer. Both his parents died when he was about ten. Entering Trinity College, Dublin, on 3 Oct. 1791, he was elected scholar in 1794, and graduated B.A. in 1796, M.A. in 1799 (College Register, where the name of his father is given as ‘Henry’). In 1797 he was ordained to the curacy of Rathfryland, co. Down, and in 1805 became chaplain of Bethesda Chapel, Dorset Street, Dublin, an appointment which he was compelled to resign through ill-health in May 1835. In doctrine he was a moderate Calvinist. Mathias died in Merrion Avenue, Dublin, on 30 May 1841, and was buried in the cemetery of Mount Jerome. His congregation erected a tablet to his memory in Bethesda Chapel and a monument in the cemetery. In January 1804 he married a daughter of Mr. Stewart of Wilmont, co. Down, by whom he had a family.
