Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 44.djvu/282

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Pellew
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Pellew

tian slaves. At two o'clock in the afternoon no answer had been returned, and Exmouth, in the Queen Charlotte, made the signal to move in to the attack. At half-past two the Queen Charlotte anchored a hundred yards from the mole-head, the other ships taking up their appointed positions in excellent order. The fire of the batteries was immediately replied to by the ships, and the action continued with the utmost fury for nearly eight hours. The batteries were silenced and in ruins, so also was a great part of the town. On the next morning a message was sent off to Exmouth to the effect that all his demands were granted, and this was finally confirmed on the 29th. Some three thousand slaves, mostly Italians and Spaniards, were liberated and sent to their respective countries; and Exmouth, having completed his task, returned home.

It was felt through Europe that the victory was Christian rather than English, and the several states of Christendom hastened to testify their gratitude to the victor. His own sovereign raised him to the dignity of a viscount, with an honourable augmentation to his arms. London voted him the freedom of the city and a sword richly ornamented with diamonds. He was made a knight of the Spanish order of King Charles III; of the Neapolitan order of St. Ferdinand and Merit; of the Netherlands order of Wilhelm; of the Sardinian order of St. Maurice and St. Lazarus. The pope sent him a valuable cameo, and the officers who had served under him in the battle presented him with a piece of plate of the value of fourteen hundred guineas.

From 1817 to 1821 Exmouth was commander-in-chief at Plymouth, after which he had no further service, and, with the exception of attending occasionally in the House of Lords, passed the remainder of his life at Teignmouth. On 15 Feb. 1832 he was appointed vice-admiral of the United Kingdom. ‘I shall have it only for one year,’ he wrote to his brother. He had it for not quite so long, dying at Teignmouth on 23 Jan. 1833. He had married, in 1783, Susan, daughter of James Frowde of Knoyle in Wiltshire, and had issue two daughters and four sons, of whom the eldest, Pownoll Bastard, succeeded as second viscount; the youngest, Edward, died honorary canon of Norwich in 1869; the second, Sir Fleetwood Broughton Reynolds [q. v.], and the third, George [q. v.], are separately noticed.

In figure Exmouth was tall and handsome, and of remarkable strength and activity. Almost as much at home in the water as on the land, he repeatedly saved life by jumping overboard—on one occasion from the foreyard of the Blonde; and more than once, in storm or battle, when the seamen quailed before some dangerous piece of work, he either did it himself, or set an example which the men felt bound to follow.

Exmouth's portrait, as a captain, by Opie, belongs to Mr. Tansley Witt; another, by Owen, is in the Painted Hall at Greenwich; another, by Sir William Beechey, in the National Portrait Gallery, has been engraved by C. Turner; a fourth, by Northcote, is also in the National Portrait Gallery; a fifth, by Sir Thomas Lawrence, was in 1863 in the possession of Mrs. H. E. Pellew.

[Osler's Life of Admiral Viscount Exmouth (with an engraved portrait after Owen) is the principal authority, and, is, in general, to be depended on except in the matter of dates. His official correspondence during his command in India, in the Public Record Office, which gives full details of the dispute with Troubridge, has an exceptional value for the history of the war in its commercial aspect. See also James's Naval History; Chevalier's Histoire de la Marine française (ii.) sous la première République, and (iii.) sous le Consulat et l'Empire; Troude's Batailles navales de la France; brief memoir in Mylor Parish Mag. 1895, by Fleetwood H. Pellew, esq., of Clifton, Lord Exmouth's grandson.]

J. K. L.

PELLEW, Sir FLEETWOOD BROUGHTON REYNOLDS (1789–1861), admiral, second son of Edward Pellew, first viscount Exmouth [q. v.], was born on 13 Dec. 1789, and in March 1799 was entered on board the Impétueux, then commanded by his father, with whom he was afterwards in the Tonnant, and in 1805 in the Culloden on the East India station. On 8 Sept. 1805 he was promoted to be lieutenant of the Sceptre, but, returning shortly afterwards to the Culloden, was successively appointed by his father to the command of the Rattlesnake sloop, the Terpsichore, and Psyche frigates, in which he was repeatedly engaged with Dutch vessels and Malay pirates. On 12 Oct. 1807 he was confirmed in the rank of commander, but was meanwhile appointed by his father acting-captain of the Powerful of 74-guns, and, in the following year, of the Cornwallis of 50 guns, and the Phaeton of 38 successively. His commission as captain was confirmed on 14 Oct. 1808, and, continuing in the Phaeton, he took part in the reduction of Mauritius in 1810 and of Java in 1811. In August 1812 the Phaeton returned to England with a large convoy of Indiamen. Pellew received for his care the thanks of the East India Company and a present of