found, to use his own words, ‘Sin very high and religion very low.’ By way of rebuking the islanders' gross superstition he wrote a little treatise entitled ‘The Vanity and Impiety of Judicial Astrology,’ &c., 12mo, London, 1690. At length, ‘upon K. James's liberty,’ he returned to England, and refusing the offer of a pastorate in London, he went again to his old people in Clare, with whom he continued till his death, which occurred in 1692 at the age of sixty-five. The year after appeared his ‘Mensalia Sacra: or Meditations on the Lord's Supper. Wherein the Nature of the Holy Sacrament is explain'd. … To which is prefixt, a brief account of the author's life and death,’ 12mo, London, 1693. This so-called ‘life’ is merely a pedantic rhapsody, and does not touch upon a single incident in Crow's career.
[Calamy's Nonconformist's Memorial (Palmer), iii. 266–70; Addit. MS. 19102, ff. 289–90.]
CROW, HUGH (1765–1829), voyager, born at Ramsey in the Isle of Man in 1765, adopted a seafaring life, became captain of a merchant vessel, and was long engaged in the African trade. In 1808 he retired from active service, and resided for some years in his native town, but in 1817 he fixed his residence in Liverpool, where he died on 13 May 1829.
His ‘Memoirs,’ published at London in 1830, 8vo, with his portrait prefixed, contain interesting descriptions of the west coast of Africa, particularly the kingdom of Bonny, and of the manners and customs of the inhabitants.
[Memoirs mentioned above; Sutton's Lancashire Authors, p. 27.]
CROW, MITFORD (d. 1719), colonel, is supposed by Noble (Biog. Hist. ii. 176) to have acquired an ascendency in politics by his relationship to Christopher Crow, who married Charlotte, daughter of Edward, earl of Lichfield, and relict of Benedict Leonard, lord Baltimore. He was M.P. for Southampton 1701–2. Crow was employed as British diplomatic agent in Catalonia, where he persuaded the Catalans to espouse the cause of the Archduke Charles of Austria, afterwards Charles V. Lord Fairfax made him one of the trustees under his patent for securing all wrecks occurring in the West Indies, and he was governor of the island of Barbadoes from 1707 to 1711. His name has not been found in the imperfectly kept military entry books of the period (Home Office Papers), and the colonial and other records furnish but scanty information concerning him. Letters from Christopher Crow, who was consul and prize agent at Leghorn (see Treas. Papers, xcv. 94, xcix. 94, cii. 118), and from Mitford Crow, who at one time sat for Southampton, are indicated in various volumes of ‘Hist. MSS. Comm. Reports.’ Crow appears to have been on terms of intimacy with Swift, and is frequently mentioned by the latter in letters from London in 1710–12. He died 15 Dec. 1719.
[Noble's Biog. Hist. vol. ii.; Calendar Treasury Papers, 1702–7; Swift's Works, ii. 267, 287, 385, iii. 11.]
CROWDER or CROWTHER, ANSELM (1588–1666), Benedictine monk, was a native of Montgomeryshire. He was among the earliest novices in the Benedictine monastery of St. Gregory at Douay, where he was clothed on 15 April 1609, and professed on 3 July 1611. He became subprior and professor of philosophy in that monastery, and was definitor in 1621. Afterwards he was sent upon the English mission in the south province of his order, and the titles of cathedral prior of Rochester (1633) and of Canterbury (1657) were conferred upon him. A document in the State Paper Office describes him as ‘sometime masquing in the name of Arthur Broughton.’ He was appointed provincial of Canterbury in 1653, and held that office until his death. His missionary labours were principally in or about London, where he established a confraternity of the rosary which was influentially supported, Robert, earl of Cardigan, being prefect of the sodality. The dean of this confraternity kept the relic of the Holy Thorn which had belonged to Glastonbury Abbey before the Reformation. Crowder died in the Old Bailey, London, on 5 May 1666. His works are: 1. ‘The First Treatise of the Spiritual Conquest; or, a Plain Discovery of the Ambuscades and evil Stratagems of our Enemies in this our daily Warfare. Enabling the Christian Warrier to presee and avoid them,’ Paris, 1651, 12mo, with curious cuts, in five treatises, each having a separate title-page. Other editions appeared at Paris 1652, 12mo; Douay, 1685, 12mo; London (edited by Canon Vaughan, O.S.B), 1874, 12mo. 2. ‘Jesus, Maria, Joseph, or the Devout Pilgrim of the Ever Blessed Virgin Mary, in his Holy Exercises, Affections, and Elevations. Upon the sacred Mysteries of Jesus, Maria, Joseph. Published for the benefit of the Pious Rosarists, by A. C. and T. V. [i.e. Thomas Vincent Sadler], Religious Monks of the holy Order of S. Bennet,’ Amsterdam, 1657, 12mo. Another contracted edition which appeared at Amsterdam in 1663, 16mo, is dedicated to Queen Catharine, and has an elaborate frontispiece containing her
