Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 44.djvu/78

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in the Downs under Lord Keith. At this time he made the acquaintance of Mr. Pitt, then residing at Walmer, which possibly led, on Pitt's return to office, to his appointment as one of the lords of the admiralty, which he continued to hold under his old captain, Charles Middleton (now Lord Barham). On the change of ministry in 1806, Patton—who had been promoted to the rank of admiral on 9 Nov. 1805—retired to his house at Fareham, where he principally resided during the remainder of his life. He employed himself in reading and writing, though he published nothing except ‘The Natural Defence of an Insular Empire’ (1810, 4to). This essay was severely and unjustly scourged, presumably by Sir John Barrow, in the ‘Quarterly Review’ (November 1810), principally because it had protested against the government of the navy by civilian first lords, a point warmly defended by Barrow in his ‘Life of Lord Howe’ in almost the words of the ‘Quarterly Review.’ Patton died at Fareham, Hampshire, on 31 Dec. 1815. He had married in 1783, and left a large family, mostly daughters. His portrait, in the possession of the family, was lent to the Naval exhibition of 1891.

Patton's younger brother, Charles Patton (1741–1837), after service in merchant ships, entered the navy as midshipman on board the Ripon in May 1758. He was present at the capture of Guadeloupe in 1759 and the blockade of Brest in 1761, subsequently commanded the Rattlesnake, was advanced to post rank on 30 May 1795, and served as agent for transports at Portsmouth for many years. He died at Fareham on 16 Jan. 1837, aged 96. He wrote ‘An Attempt to establish the Basis of Freedom on simple and unerring Principles in a series of Letters’ (Edinburgh, 1793, 8vo), a series of deductions from a brief historical inquiry suggested by Burke's famous essay; and, secondly, ‘The Effects of Property upon Society and Government Investigated’ (1797, 8vo), a plea for the basis of representation upon property. This was prefixed to an elaborate work by another brother,

Robert Patton (1742–1812), who entered the army of the East India Company, became governor of St. Helena, and died at Wallington, Hampshire, in 1812. His daughter married Sir Henry Torrens. He published ‘An Historical Review of the Monarchy and Republic of Rome upon the Principles derived from the Effects of Property and Government’ (with Charles Patton's preface), and ‘Principles of Asiatic Monarchies politically and historically investigated,’ 1803 (Monthly Rev. 1803, p. 285; Gent. Mag. 1837, i. 321; Brit. Mus. Cat.)

[Ralfe's Nav. Biogr. iii. 387; Passing Certificate and Official Letters in the Public Record Office.]

J. K. L.

PATTRICK or PATRICK, GEORGE (1746–1800), divine, fourth son of Thomas Patrick of Marks Tey in Essex, was born in August 1746. His grandfather and father were farmers at Marks Tey, and had occupied the same land for more than a century. He was admitted to St. Paul's School on 4 Feb. 1756, and about 1762 entered an attorney's office in Colchester. In February 1769, after spending two years in London, he commenced to practise at Dedham in Essex, where a taste for fashionable company and expensive entertainments soon dissipated a moderate fortune. Falling under religious influences, he abandoned the law and was ordained to the curacy of St. Michael, Mile End, Colchester, on 23 Dec. 1770, and was admitted a fellow-commoner of Sidney-Sussex College on 29 Dec. On 22 Sept. 1771 he was ordained priest, and on 21 Aug. 1772 was presented to the living of Aveley in Essex through the interest of Thomas Barrett-Lennard, seventeenth baron Dacre. In March 1773 he took the curacy of Wennington, also in Essex, which he held with his living. In December 1775 he was made chaplain to Lord Dacre, and in 1777 he graduated LL.B. at Cambridge. At Aveley Patrick performed his clerical duties irregularly. He was frequently employed by Lord Dacre, to the neglect of his parochial work, in the examination of old deeds or in the manufacture of genealogy. In the winter of 1782 he sought the spiritual advice of Dr. Richard Conyers, and removed to Deptford, to be near his director. From June 1783 to June 1784 he was travelling in France and Italy for his health. On 10 Oct. 1787 he finally left Aveley, and was chosen chaplain of Morden College, Blackheath, by the influence of Charles Trevor Roper, eighteenth baron Dacre, who had succeeded his uncle in the peerage in 1786, and retained Patrick's services as chaplain. Disputes with the pensioners led to his dismissal on 22 June 1790. On 17 April 1791 he became curate of Carshalton in Surrey. On 12 Jan. 1792 he was elected to the lectureship of Woolwich, but the incumbent refused him the pulpit, and he never preached there. In the summer of 1793 he removed to London. On 19 March 1796 he was elected lecturer of St. Leonard's, Shoreditch, but, owing to the objection of the incumbent, only preached for the first time on 4 Dec. 1796; the sermon was published. Towards the close of 1797 he was chosen Sunday-evening lecturer at St. Bride's, Fleet