VICE-ADMIRALS OF THE BLUE.
SIR WILLIAM JOHNSTONE HOPE,
One of the Commissioners for executing the office of Lord High Admiral; Senior Vice-Admiral of the Blue; Knight Commander of the most honorable Military Order of the Bath; Knight of the Order of Malta and of the Turkish Order of the Crescent; a Commissioner of the Board of Longitude; Member of Parliament for Dumfries-shire; Fellow of the Royal Society; a Vice-President of the Pitt Club of Scotland ,and a Member of the Royal Caledonian Hunt.
The surname of Hope is of great antiquity in Scotland. John de Hope, the immediate ancestor of the subject of this memoir, is said to have come from France, in the retinue of Magdalene, Queen to James V., anno 1537; settling in Scotland, he married Elizabeth dimming, by whom he had a son, Edward, who was one of the most considerable inhabitants of Edinburgh in the reign of Queen Mary; and being a great promoter of the Reformation, was chosen one of the Commissioners for that Metropolis to the General Assembly in 1560.
The said Edward was father of Henry Hope, a considerable merchant, who married Jaqueline de Tott, a French lady, and by her had two sons; I. Henry, ancestor of the great and opulent branch of the Hopes, long settled at Amsterdam; and II. Thomas, an eminent lawyer[1], great-grandfather of Charles, 1st. Earl of Hopetown; whose grandson, John, a merchant in London, married Mary, only daughter of Eliab Breton, of Fortyhill, Enfield, co. Middlesex, Esq. by Mary, daughter and co-heiress of Sir William Wolstenholme, Bart.
William Johnstone Hope, the third and youngest son by the above marriage, was born at Finchley, in the county of Middlesex, Aug. 16, 1766, and entered the naval service in the year 1776, under the patronage of his uncle, the late Com-
- ↑ Sir Thomas Hope was Advocate to Charles I. Three of his sons being at the same time Lords of Session, it was thought indecent that he should plead uncovered before them, which was the origin of the privilege the King’s Advocates have ever since enjoyed.
