the place was stormed by the soldiers in a mob, following the lead of two or three drunken sailors. At Calcutta the fort was taken by a combined detachment of seamen and soldiers. Húgli was taken a few days later, and some five hundred seamen were added to Clive's little army for the defence of Calcutta. On 9 Feb. 1757 the nawáb concluded a treaty with the English, but shortly afterwards he was won by French intrigues to support them in the war of which the news had just arrived. Watson determined nevertheless to reduce Chandernagore, which was done on 23 March after a destructive cannonade from the ships and the shore batteries. The nawáb, trusting to the support of the French, became very insolent; but his own servants conspired against him. His minister, Mír Jaffier, entered into negotiations with Clive and Watson, and it was agreed that Suráj ud Dowlah should be deposed, and that Mír Jaffier should succeed him. The intermediary now made a very exaggerated claim for reward, and was quieted only by a clause in his favour introduced into a fictitious agreement. Watson refused to be a party to the fraud, and, though his name was written to it by Clive or by Clive's order, it does not appear that he ever knew anything about it. In the military operations which followed, Watson reinforced Clive's small force by a party of fifty sailors, who acted as artillerymen, and had an important share in the brilliant victory of Plassey on 22 June. In this Watson was not personally concerned. His health, severely tried by the climate, broke down, and he died on 16 Aug. 1757. A monument to his memory was erected in Westminster Abbey, at the cost of the East India Company. He married, in 1741, Rebecca, eldest daughter of John Francis Buller of Morval, Cornwall, and had issue two daughters and one son, Charles, born in 1751, on whom in 1760 a baronetcy was conferred.
His portrait, by Thomas Hudson, has been engraved by Edward Fisher.
[Charnock's Biogr. Nav. iv. 407; Beatson's Naval and Mil. Memoirs; Ives's Historical Narrative; Passing Certificate and Commission and Warrant Books in the Public Record Office; English Cyclopædia, ‘Biography,’ v. 551–2; Foster's Baronetage.]
WATSON, CHRISTOPHER (d. 1581), historian and translator, a native of Durham, was educated at St. John's College, Cambridge, where he proceeded B.A. in 1565–6 (Cooper, Athenæ Cantabr. i. 434). For some time he resided with Thomas Gawdy (recorder of Norwich, afterwards a knight and a judge of the queen's bench) at his residence, Gawdy Hall, in Harleston, Norfolk. It was during this period that he appears to have composed his translation of Polybius, for the printing of which a license was granted by the Stationers' Company to Thomas Hackett in 1565; but no copy of an impression bearing that date is known to exist. He commenced M.A. in 1569, and his name occurs in the list of the opponents of the new statutes of the university in 1572 (Lamb, Original Documents, p. 359). It is supposed that he was in holy orders, and that he died before 12 June 1581, when the Stationers' Company licensed to Henry Carre ‘a lamentation for the death of Mr. Christofer Watson, mynister.’ A Christopher Watson was appointed rector of Bircham Newton, Norfolk, in 1573, and also resigned the rectory of Beechamwell in the same county before 1583 (Blomefield, vii. 294, x. 291).
Watson published: 1. ‘The Hystories of the most famous and worthy Cronographer Polybius: Discoursing of the warres betwixt the Romanes and Carthaginienses, a riche and goodly Worke, conteining holsome counsels and wonderfull devises against the incombrances of fickle Fortune. Englished by C. W. Whereunto is annexed an Abstracte, compendiously coarcted out of the life and worthy acts perpetrate by our puissant Prince King Henry the fift,’ London, 1568, 8vo, dedicated to Thomas Gawdy. 2. ‘Catechisme,’ London, 1579, 8vo. A tract of four leaves, without title-page or pagination, entitled ‘Briefe Principles of Religion for the Exercise of Youth: done by C. W.’ (London, 1581, 8vo), is assigned to Watson in the British Museum Catalogue. He also made some valuable collections on the history of Durham, which are extant in Cottonian MS. Vitell. C. ix. ff. 61 sqq.
[Addit MS. 5883, f. 81; Ames's Typogr. Antiq. (Herbert), pp. 742, 895, 1338; Brüggemann's English Editions of Greek and Latin Authors, p. 241; Arber's Registers of the Stationers' Company; Cat. of Cottonian MSS. p. 425; Tanner's Bibl. Brit. p. 755.]
WATSON, DAVID (1710–1756), translator of Horace, is believed to have been born in Brechin, Forfarshire, in 1710. He is said to have studied at St. Leonard's College, St. Andrews, and the title-pages of his books describe him as A.M. of that college; but the university records from 1720 onwards do not contain his name either as student or graduate. Nor is there any official evidence of the popular statements that Watson was ‘professor of philosophy’ in St. Leonard's and lost his chair in 1747, when the colleges of St. Leonard's and St. Salvator's were united. The professors
