Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 39.djvu/55

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Morier
49
Morier

(1668) of ' Exercitations on the Epistle to the Hebrews,' and Malachy Thruston, M.D., did him a like honour in his thesis 'De Respirationis Usu Primario' (1670). A letter to Morice from Sir Bevil Grenville (who made him his trustee), written at Newcastle, 15 May 1639, is in the 'Thurloe State Papers' (i. 2-3).

The third son, Humphrey Morice (1640?-1696), was in March 1663 granted the reversion of one of the seven auditorships of the exchequer, and ultimately succeeded to the position. His youngest brother, Nicholas, sat in parliament for Newport, Cornwall, from 1667 to 1679, and one of the two went to the Hague early in 1667 as secretary to Lord Holies and Henry Coventry, the commissioners engaged in an abortive endeavour to arrange a treaty with the Dutch. Of the appointment Pepys wrote : 'That which troubles me most is that we have chosen a son of Secretary Morris, a boy never used to any business, to go secretary to the embassy.' Humphrey married on 8 Jan. 1670 Alice, daughter of Lady Mary Trollope of Stamford, Lincolnshire. In his later years he engaged in mercantile pursuits, chiefly with Hamburg. He died in the winter of 1696, and on 29 Dec., as 'Magr. Humphrey Morice,' was buried at Werrington, Devonshire, the family seat, then occupied by his nephew, Sir Nicholas Morice, bart. His son Humphry is separately noticed.

[For the father: Wood's Athenæ, ed. Bliss, iii. 1087-90; Boase's Exeter Coll. p. lix Foster's Alumni Oxon.; Vivian's Devon Visitation, p. 621; Worth's Plymouth, pp. 163, 168, 191, 421; Robbins's Launceston, pp. 208-9, 214; Worthington's Diary (Chetham' Soc.), vol. ii. pt. i. p. 152; Wood's Life (Oxf. Hist. Soc.), ii. 66; Price's King's Restoration, passim; London Christian Instructor, vii. 1-4, 57-60 (1824); State Papers, 1659-67; Lysons's Devonshire, pt.ii. pp. 74, 466, 552. An elaborate monument to the families of Morice and Prideaux is printed in W. H. H. Rogers's Sepulchral Effigies of Devon, pp. 292-3. Several extracts, by the Rev. Edward King, from Werrington parish registers relating to his descendants are printed in the Genealogist, iv. 61-3. For the son: information from A. F. Robbins, esq.; Collins's English Baronetage, vol. iii. pt. i. p. 269; Pepys's Diary, iii. 65; Calendar of Domestic State Papers, 1663-4, pp. 94, 538, 1666-7, pp. 523, 601; Calendar of Treasury Papers, 1702-7, p. 121; Brit. Mus. Add. MSS. 28052, f. 72; Chester's London Marriage Licences, 1521-1869, p. 944; Western Antiquary, viii. 53, xi. 6.]

W. P. C.


MORIER, DAVID (1705?–1770), painter, was born at Berne in Switzerland about 1705. He came to England in 1743, and obtained the patronage of William, duke of Cumberland, who gave him a pension of 200l. a year. Morier excelled in painting animals, especially horses, and executed several battle pieces and equestrian portraits. Among the latter were portraits of George II, George III (engraved by Francois Simon Ravenet [q. v.]), and the Duke of Cumberland (engraved by Lempereur) . Portraits by Morier of the Duke of Cumberland and John Pixley, the Ipswich smuggler, were engraved in mezzotint by John Faber, jun. Morier exhibited at the first exhibition of the Society of Artists in 1760, and again in 1762, 1765, and 1768, sending equestrian portraits, and in the last year 'An Old Horse and the Farmer.' He fell into pecuniary difficulties, and was in 1769 confined in the Fleet prison, where he died in January 1770. He was buried on 8 Jan. in the burial-ground at St. James's Church, Clerkenwell, London, at the expense of the Society of Artists.

[Redgrave's Dict. of Artists; Chaloner Smith's British Mezzotinto Portraits; Catalogues of the Soc. of Artists.]

L. C.


MORIER, DAVID RICHARD (1784–1877), diplomatist, was the third son of Isaac Morier [q. v.], consul-general to the Turkey Company at Constantinople, and was born at Smyrna 8 Jan. 1784. He was educated at Harrow, and entered the diplomatic service. In January 1804, at the age of twenty, he was appointed secretary to the political mission sent by the British government to 'Ali Pasha of Janina and to the Turkish governors of the Morea and other provinces, with a view to counteracting the influence of France in south-east Europe. In May 1807 he was ordered to take entire charge of the mission, but as the continued rupture of diplomatic relations between England and the Porte defeated his negotiations with the Turkish governors, he was presently transferred to Sir Arthur Paget's mission at the Dardanelles, the object of which was to re-establish peace. While attached to this mission he was despatched on special service to Egypt, where he was instructed to negotiate for the release of the British prisoners captured by Mohammed 'Ali during General Fraser's fruitless expedition against Rosetta in 1807. In the summer of 1808 he was attached to Mr. (afterwards Sir) Robert Adair's embassy, and in conjunction with Stratford Canning [q. v.], afterwards Viscount Stratford de Redcliffe, assisted in the negotiations which resulted in the treaty of the Dardanelles of 5 Jan. 1809. He proceeded with Adair and Canning to Constantinople, where, with the exception of a mission on special service to Tabriz (where the British lega-