faintly whispered, by way of refutation, “You are a liar.” He repeatedly signalised himself by jumping overboard and saving the lives of drowning men. He was promoted to be Lieutenant in 1812, and joined H.M.S. Espiegle. But after an unsuccessful effort to save a drowning sailor, he burst a blood-vessel, and was sent home invalided. He returned to active service in 18 14, and became a Commander in the next year. Peace followed, and he did not rise to the rank of a Post-Captain until 1825. In that year he was made a Companion of the Bath (C.B.), and was also decorated with the medal of the Royal Humane Society. Not being wedded to the past like his father, he openly condemned the press-gang, and was in advance of our sailor-king who, in consequence, it is said, refused him his smile, although he could not help being delighted with his nautical romances. By these he became famous, and will always be remembered, especially by “Peter Simple,” which was published in 1835. But he also gained much credit in more serious studies. He was a Fellow of the Royal and of the Linnean Societies. In 1837 he published “The Universal Code of Signals for the Mercantile Marine of all Nations,” for which valuable work Louis Philippe, King of the French, made him a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour, and sent him the Gold Cross of that Order of Knighthood. (There is an edition published in 1869, edited by G. B. Richardson.) He visited America, and printed two series in six volumes of a work, entitled “A Diary in America, with Remarks on its Institutions,” London, 1839. He married Catharine, daughter of Sir Stephen Shairp. His son, Lieutenant Marryat, perished in the wreck of H.M.S. Avenger, in February 1842. Captain Marryat died on the 2d of August 1848.
VIII. Professor Pryme, M.P.
Francis, nephew of Rev. Abraham De la Pryme, was born in 1702; he was twice Mayor of Hull, and died 7th July 1769. He had dropped the prefix de la (as explained in my Chapter VI.), so that his son was known as Christopher Pryme, Esq., of Cottingham (Yorkshire). Mr. Christopher Pryme was born in 1739, and married Alice, daughter of George Dinsdale, Esq., residing at Nappa Hall, and sister of Rev. Owen Dinsdale, Rector of Welford. Mr. Pryme died in September 1784, at the comparatively early age of forty-five, from the effects of a fall from his horse; he was buried at Ferriby.
George Pryme, his only child, was born at Cottingham, on 4th August 1781, and was thus only three years of age at his father’s death; but his mother lived a widow for sixty years. His school education was at Hull, under Rev. Joseph Milner. He entered Trinity College, Cambridge, in October 1799, and in January 1803 he took his degree of B.A. with honours, coming out as sixth wrangler — an honour due to his intelligence and accuracy as a mathematician, for he avoided cramming and late hours. During his faithful and industrious under-graduate career, he cheered his leisure hours with poetic composition, and produced prize Latin poems in 1801 and 1802, for each of which he received a University medal. In 1804 he won Dr. Claudius Buchanan’s prize for an original Greek Ode. He became a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, on 1st October 1805, and proceeded to the degree of M.A. in July 1806.
Mr. Pryme adopted the profession of a barrister, and was called to the bar at Lincoln’s Inn, on the same day as Lord Campbell, 15th November 1806. In order to supply a desideratum in academic education, he began to lecture on Political Economy at Cambridge in March 1813, and continued to do so for fifty years. He published at Cambridge, in 1823, “An Introductory Lecture and Syllabus to a Course delivered in the University of Cambridge on the Principles of Political Economy.” On 21st May 1828 the University conferred on him the title of Professor of Political Economy; he published a third edition of his Introductory Lecture and Syllabus in 1852, and a “fourth edition, corrected,” in 1859; he continued to lecture till 1863. He had published at Cambridge in 1818, a “Counter-Protest of a Layman in reply to the Protest of Archdeacon Thomas.”
Professor Pryme was elected one of the M.P.’s for the borough of Cambridge in December 1832 (population, 14,300; number of voters, about 245). He was twice re-elected by the largely increased constituency, and retired from Parliament at the dissolution in 1841. He was a useful member of the House of Commons, and spoke clearly and sensibly; he was sometimes called upon to preside when the House was in Committee on a non-official legislator’s Bill. He wrote, chiefly from memory, some of his experiences in the House.[1] In 1834 he printed for private circulation a
- ↑ Mr. Pryme’s recollections arc incorrect as to my late father, Sir Andrew Agnew, when he professes to describe the passage, through the House of Commons in Committee, of his Bill for the better observance of the
