India station, from 1841 to 1844, returning to England by Tahiti, where he was sent to protect English interests during the arbitrary proceedings of the French (Ann. Reg. pt. i. p. 256). On 30 Dec. 1850 Nicolas was promoted to be rear-admiral. He died at Plymouth on 1 April 1851, and was buried in St. Martin's Church. He married in 1818 Frances Anna, daughter of Nicholas Were of Landcox, near Wellington in Somerset, by whom he had issue. He was the author of ‘An Inquiry into the Causes which have led to our late Naval Disasters,’ 1814; and of ‘A Letter to Rear-Admiral Du Petit Thouars on late events at Otaheite,’ Papeete, 1843.
Granville Toup Nicolas (d. 1894), son of the above, entered the navy in 1848, was promoted lieutenant in 1856 after service in the Black Sea, and in the following year was appointed to the Leopard, the flagship of Sir Stephen Lushington [q. v.], on the south-east coast of America. Thence he was appointed to Sir James Hope's flagship, the Impérieuse, on the China station. He was subsequently left in command of the gunboat Insolent, and was repeatedly engaged in the operations for the suppression of the Tae-ping insurrection. He was promoted commander in 1867, retired as captain in 1882, and died at Edinburgh on 21 April 1894 (Times, 25 April, 1894).
[The Memoir in Marshall's Roy. Nav. Biog. viii. (Suppl. pt. iv.) 53, appears to have been contributed by Nicolas, and contains numerous letters and official papers which give it a distinct value; Naval Chronicle, xl. 333 (with a portrait); O'Byrne's Nav. Biogr. Dict.; Gent. Mag. 1851, i. 665; James's Naval History (1859), v. 257–8, 341–2; Boase and Courtney's Bibl. Cornub.]
NICOLAS, Sir NICHOLAS HARRIS (1799–1848), antiquary, born at Dartmouth on 10 March 1799, was privately baptised by the minister of St. Petrox, Dartmouth, on 1 April. His great-grandfather came to England on the revocation of the edict of Nantes, and settled at Looe in Cornwall, and he himself was the fourth son of John Harris Nicolas (1758–1844), R.N. John Toup Nicolas [q. v.] was his eldest brother. His mother, Margaret, daughter and coheiress of John Blake, was granddaughter of the Rev. John Keigwin, vicar of Landrake, whose wife, Prudence Busvargus, was, by her first husband, the Rev. John Toup, mother of the Rev. Jonathan Toup [q. v.] Nicolas entered the navy as a first-class volunteer on 27 Oct. 1808, became a midshipman in the Pilot 31 March 1812, served on the coast of Calabria for some years, and on 20 Sept. 1815 was promoted to the post of lieutenant. In 1816 he was put on half-pay, and compelled to find a fresh field for his energies. Thereupon he read for the bar, and was called at the Inner Temple on 6 May 1825, but did not enter into general practice, confining himself to peerage claims before the House of Lords.
Nicolas married on 28 March 1822 Sarah, youngest daughter of John Davison of the East India House and of Loughton in Essex, who claimed descent from William Davison [q. v.], secretary of state to Queen Elizabeth. This circumstance led to his investigating the career of that minister, and entering upon a course of antiquarian study which he never abandoned. Nicolas was elected F.S.A. about 1824, and early in 1826 was placed upon the council; but after he had attended one meeting his name was, on the ensuing anniversary (23 April 1826), omitted from the house list. He then started an inquiry into the state of the society, and endeavoured to effect a reform in its constitution. But his efforts were defeated by the officials, and after the anniversary in 1828 he withdrew from it altogether. In 1830 he turned his attention to the record commission, criticising its constitution and the cost of the works which it had issued. He issued in 1830 a volume addressed to Lord Melbourne of ‘Observations on the State of Historical Literature and on the Society of Antiquaries, with Remarks on the Record Commission,’ the portion of which relating to the purchase by the British Museum of the Joursanvault Manuscripts is summarised in Edwards's ‘Founders of the British Museum,’ ii. 535–42. Sir Francis Palgrave at once replied with a letter of ‘Remarks submitted to Viscount Melbourne,’ 1831, and Nicolas promptly answered him in a ‘Refutation of Palgrave's Remarks,’ which was also appended to a reissue of his ‘Observations on the State of Historical Literature.’ The titles of five more works on this subject, three of which, though written by Nicolas, purported to be by Mr. C. P. Cooper, secretary to the record commission, are given in the ‘Bibliotheca Cornubiensis,’ i. 393. It was mainly owing to his exertions that the select committee of 1836, under the presidency of Charles Buller [q. v.], was appointed to inquire into the public records. His evidence before this committee is printed in the appendix to its ‘Report,’ pp. 342–57, 377–85, 426. His evidence before the select committee of the British Museum fills pp. 290–304 of the appendix to its ‘Report’ in 1836. He had in 1846 some correspondence with Sir A. Panizzi ‘on the supply of printed
