Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 59.djvu/155

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till then unknown, and first brought to European knowledge the numerous islands of the Low Archipelago and of the Society Islands, including Tahiti, which he called King George the Third's Island. Thence he made for Tinian, which he reached on 19 Aug., having discovered many new islands on the way. After staying a month at Tinian, he went to Batavia, and thence home by the Cape of Good Hope, arriving in the Downs on 18 May 1768. Without having displayed any particular genius as a navigator or discoverer, Wallis is fully entitled to the credit of having so well carried out his instructions as to add largely to our knowledge of the Pacific; and still more to that of having kept his ship's company in fairly good health. During the whole voyage, though thrown entirely on their own resources, there was no serious outbreak of scurvy, and when the ship arrived at Batavia there was one man sick. Batavia was then and always a pestilential hole, and while there many men died of fever and dysentery; but on leaving Batavia the sickness at once abated, and a month in Table Bay did away with much of the remaining evil. In November 1770 Wallis was appointed to the Torbay, commissioned on account of the dispute with Spain about the Falkland Islands; and in 1780 he for a short time commanded the Queen. In 1782 he was appointed an extra commissioner of the navy; the office was abolished in 1783, but was reinstituted in 1787, when Wallis was again appointed to it, and remained in it till his death at Devonshire Street, Portland Place, London, on 21 Jan. 1795. His widow Betty, daughter of John Hearle of Penryn, died at Mount's Bay on 13 Nov. 1804, leaving no issue.

Wallis's account of his voyage, first printed in Hawkesworth (1733), was repeated in Hamilton Moore's ‘Collection of Voyages’ (1785), in Robert Wilson's ‘Voyages’ (1806), in Kerr's ‘General History of Voyages’ (1814), and in Joachim Heinrich Campe's collection (Brunswick, 1831). Some of the charts and maps made by Wallis are in Addit. MS. 21593.

[Gent. Mag. 1804, ii. 1080; Maclean's Trigg Minor, ii. 370 sq.; Boase and Courtney's Bibl. Cornubiensis, p. 850; Charnock's Biogr. Nav. vi. 277; Naval Chronicle, xxxiii. 89; Hawkesworth's Voyages of Discovery, vol. i.; Commission and Warrant books in the Public Record Office.]

J. K. L.

WALLMODEN, AMALIE SOPHIE MARIANNE, Countess of Yarmouth (1704–1765), born on 1 April 1704, was daughter of Johann Franz Dietrich von Wendt, general in the Hanoverian service, by his wife Friderike Charlotte, born von dem Busche, widow of General Welk, also in the Hanoverian service. In 1727 she was married to Gottlieb Adam von Wallmoden, ‘Oberhauptmann’ of Calenberg, Hanover. Blonde, sprightly, amiable, niece of Lady Darlington, and great-niece of the elder Countess Platen, Frau von Wallmoden attracted in 1735 the attention of George II during his summer sojourn in the electorate. She received from him without hauteur gallantries which he frankly communicated to the queen, by whom they were as frankly encouraged. Caroline's complaisance was probably dictated rather by policy than by indifference, for a touch of bitterness is apparent in the ‘Ah, mon Dieu! cela n'empêche pas,’ with which on her deathbed she rejoined to the ‘Non, j'aurai des maîtresses’ with which the king met her suggestion that he should marry again. The king kept his word, and when the time of mourning had elapsed Frau von Wallmoden was brought over from Hanover and installed in St. James's Palace. In 1739 she was divorced from her husband, and in the following year (24 March) she was created Countess of Yarmouth. Her advent was hailed by Walpole in the hope that her influence might be politically serviceable. Lady Yarmouth, however, proved entirely unfit for the rôle of a Pompadour, and had the good sense to abstain as a rule from meddling in court intrigues. On the death of the king, whose affection she never lost, she returned to Hanover, where she died on 19 Oct. 1765. She left issue two sons, Franz Ernst and Johann Ludwig von Wallmoden. The latter, born on 27 April 1736, was brought up at the English court and reputed the fruit of her intimacy with the king. As, however, he was born before the divorce, his paternity is doubtful. He entered the Hanoverian service, and bore high command with no great distinction in the war with the French (1793–1801). He died at Hanover on 10 Oct. 1811.

Some of Lady Yarmouth's letters are preserved in Additional MSS. 6856, 23814 f. 578, 32710–969, and Egerton MS. 1722 ff. 35, 132.

[Duerre's Regesten des Geschlechtes von Wallmoden, pp. 248, 255; Malortie's Beiträge zur Gesch. des Braunschweig-Lüneburgischen Hauses u. Hofes, v. 149; Vehse's Gesch. der Höfe des Hauses Braunschweig, i. 273; Siebenfach. Königl. Gross.-Britannisch. u. Churfürstl. Braunschweig-Lüneburgisch. Staats-Calendar, 1740 p. 72; Lord Hervey's Mem. i. 499; Lord Chesterfield's Letters, ed. Mahon, iii. 274; Bielfeld's Friedrich