Chapter VI: Part 6

'Having been long accustomed to the confinement of his study,
retirement and old age incessantly call upon him with the less
terrour; and resignation to his increasing infirmities becomes every
day easier and less irksome, till at last he now accounts it among
the blessings of long life that it has quieted and extinguished
every spark of ambition, and that it enables him to withdraw more
and more with some decency from the world; precluding the perhaps
well-intended, though rather too frequent visits of civility, in which
there is generally more dissipation at all stages of life than real
compensation for the waste of time, especially in the days of age.

'In hopes, however, of being not entirely useless as yet, whilst it
pleases God to grant him life, most of his present time (as not the
least of his pleasures) he allots to the instruction of a dutiful and
apprehensive youth, the present companion of his retirement.'

So lived, and so, on the 31st August, 1772, peacefully died, at Ludgvan, Cornwall's 'Nourice of Antiquity,' Dr. William Borlase. He was buried by the side of his wife, near the east end of his own church, on the north side of the altar; and his executor inscribed on his unpretending monument the words:

'Perurbani, perhumani, perquam pii,
hujusce parochiæ per annos LII.
rectoris desideratissimi,
in republica necnon literaria versatissimi.
Loquuntur scripta,
testantur posteri.'

He had six sons, only two of whom survived him, the Rev. John Borlase and the Rev. George Borlase, Casuistical Professor and Registrar of the University of Cambridge. His son Christopher, a sailor, died of a fever on the coast of Guinea in 1749, and appears to have inherited some of his father's artistic skill.

As an illustration of Borlase's 'method,' and of his perfervid imagination when he got amongst his native granite rocks, I have thought it would be interesting to cull the following few notes from his 'Scilly Isles':

'On a Carn adjoining the Giant's Castle,' he observes, 'the floor, consisting only of one Rock, must convince us that this _Circle_ was intended for a place of Worship, for it could not serve for a _Sepulchre_; but why the _Quoits_ were hollowed out into _Basons_ (as they are placed in a _Religious Circle_) must have been in some sort or other subservient to the purposes of the _Druid Superstition_.' As regards the 'Rock Basons,' he goes on to say, 'My opinion concerning the use of them you do not want to be informed of; I have always thought that they were designed to receive in their utmost purity the waters of the Heavens for holy uses; but in such doubtful cases let every man think for himself.' A little further on, however, the worthy Doctor's theory as to the extreme purity of the water is somewhat disturbed by his finding some of them inconveniently near the sea; but he is equal to the occasion. 'Though,' he says, 'the spray of the sea so near them on every hand might well be supposed to fill these Basons with salt water, yet I found the water in them to be quite fresh.' Some of these were actually under the sea-level!

In another place, writing of tolmens, the Doctor observes that, though their Cornish name, appropriately enough, signifies a holed stone, yet that was not 'the true Druid name ... for the Druids _probably_ call'd it by the name of one of their Deities as soon as it was ritually consecrated, and most likely by that of _Saturn_.'

He is in doubt whether the furrows which he noticed on certain rocks were channels on the sites of the holy fires of the Druids, made in order to enable the priests the better to collect the sacred embers, or whether they were designed to collect the blood of sacrificed victims for the purposes of divination. But he admits ''tis all mere conjecture.'

And again--a 'canopy rock' with a row of rude stone pillars before it is a 'Druid Seat of Judgment';--in fact, on Borlase's theory, the whole of the Scilly Isles must have been thickly peopled with Druids.

But as the writer in the _Quarterly_ truly observes, 'The Druids have of late years been somewhat rudely dismissed from the shade of their accustomed oaks, and the rock-basons have been proved to be simply the result of the weathering of the granite.'

FOOTNOTES:

[71] At Rospeith, in this parish, according to Davies Gilbert, P.R.S., the last native wolf in England was seen.

[72] The Manor of Borlase-Burgess, formerly the seat of the Borlase family in St. Wenn, 'is said to have been given by William Rufus to a certain Norman who was Lord of Talfer in that country, and whose posterity assumed the name of Borlase.'--(Borlase's MSS.)

[73] At Pendeen lived, in the time of Henry VII., one Richard Pendyne, 'one of the rebels who, under Lord Audley, Flammock, and Joseph,' dismantled Tehidy, the residence of John Basset, then Sheriff of the County, and did much other mischief in the West--an offence which he expiated by losing his estates.

[74] According to Kippis, it was the St. Just living which was subsequently procured through this interest.

[75] Second book of the 'Antiquities of Cornwall.'

[76] Borlase was a bounteous contributor of minerals for the adornment of Pope's grotto, in which the poet fixed his Cornish friend's name in capital letters, formed of crystals; gracefully saying that he had placed them where they would remind him of the donor--'in the shade, but shining.'

[77] The Doctor was one of the old-fashioned Churchmen who dreaded _trop de zèle_, and, probably without much reluctance, issued in his magisterial capacity a warrant to 'apprehend all such able-bodied men as had no lawful calling or sufficient maintenance;' in fact, he was afraid of riots amongst his excitable parishioners. The squabble is recorded in the great Revivalist's journals for the summers of 1784 and 1785. But the end of the affair was that Wesley, having on the first occasion appeared before the Bench at St. Michael's Mount, and on the second having called upon Dr. Borlase himself, at St. Just, in response to the warrant, on the latter occasion found that the Doctor had gone to church--and so the matter ended.

[78] It was his habit to rise at five, and go to bed at nine.

[79] A second edition was published in London in 1769.

_THE BOSCAWENS._

_THE BOSCAWENS._

A novel feature presents itself in this case to the would-be historian which does not appear, at least to so great an extent, in the cases of certain other distinguished Cornish families. The Killigrews, the Arundells, the Godolphins, and the Grenvilles, for instance, all yielded more than one man of mark deserving of special notice; but this can hardly be said of the family of Boscawen: the interest centres in Admiral the Honourable Edward Boscawen, almost to the exclusion of all his ancestors, and of all his descendants. And he affords another instance, like Opie, of being doubly secure of a niche in the temple of Fame, from his own distinguished career, as well as through the wit and distinguished social qualities of his wife; who, the writer regrets to add, was not--as the majority of her husband's ancestresses, and as those of most distinguished Cornishmen were--a Cornish-woman.

It would probably be of little use now to speculate upon the causes why the Boscawens, for at least five centuries, continued to hold a well-recognised position in the county, acquiring by their judicious marriages into wealthy families vast landed interests in various parts of Cornwall, but chiefly in the vicinities of Buryan and Tregothnan and in the north-western part of the county, doubtless holding their own amongst their fellows, and doing what the world would call their 'duty;' and yet contributing, so far as I can ascertain, scarcely one person whose name is to be found in the usual records of English history until we reach the eighteenth century.

Yet it must be noted that the Boscawens are of very old standing in Cornwall. Hals indeed tells us that the first Boscawen who settled in Cornwall was an Irish gentleman;--and Hals may be right; for he had peculiar facilities for learning the early traditions of the family from the neighbourhood of Fentongollan (the seat of the Halses) to Tregothnan, the seat of the Boscawens; and also from the fact that one member of the family 'Hugh Boscawen, Gent., Master of Arts,' as a labour of love, taught young Hals, and many other youngsters, all that they knew of Latin and Greek in an old school-house in St. Michael Penkivel Church.[80] Nor was the Master of Arts the only member of the family who dispensed information free of charge; for Hals tells us of a Charles Boscawen of Nansavallan who was a barrister-at-law, 'and who made noe further use thereof in his elder years then to councill and assist his friends in all their lawe concerns gratis.' He died in London, without issue; and was Member of Parliament for Truro,--an ancient borough, with which, as we shall see, the Boscawens were intimately connected.

At Boscawen Rose, in the parish of St. Buryan, within a few miles of the Land's End, where the name is still found attached to places in the parish, the first Boscawen is said to have exchanged his Irish patronymic for that of the place where he took up his abode, and which was probably well enough described by its Cornish name, which signifies the Valley of Elder-trees. It is interesting to notice how many of these trees (much esteemed by the old Cornish folk), and almost these alone, still are to be found near the wind-whipped shores of the Land's End.[81]

I find no record of the marriages of the first two or three generations; but in the reign of Edward I. (about 1292), Henry de Boscawen married Hawise Trewoof; and some half century later (1335) John de Boscawen married an heiress, Joan de Tregothnan,[82] thus establishing a connexion between those two names, which has ever since been maintained; for Tregothnan, 'the place of well-wooded valleys,' is still the family seat: it is now the Cornish residence of Evelyn Boscawen, sixth Viscount Falmouth. The present house, a handsome structure, was built by the architect, W. Wilkins, jun., about the year 1815, replacing a more picturesque but smaller and less commodious building.

Intimate relations with the exquisitely wooded banks of the Fal were still further established by the marriage of the son of the aforesaid John Boscawen of Tregothnan with another heiress, named Joan, like his mother, who brought her husband the wealth of the family of Albalanda or Blanchland, in the parish of Kea, on the opposite side of the river to Tregothnan; a place where, according to Lysons, copper was first successfully worked in Cornwall. And, while on this subject, it seems not unworthy of remark that the alliances of the Boscawens and the Albalandas with the families who resided on the Fal and its tributaries were numerous. Rose Albalanda married a William Dangrous of Carclew, in the fifth year of Edward III.; and the heiress of Trenowith, who married Hugh Boscawen, a great grandson of the first-named John, was herself the descendant of ancestors called after Tolverne, Trewarthenick and Tregarrick--names which still belong to places on the shores of the river, or hard by. Nor did the Boscawens neglect to cultivate acquaintance and to intermarry with other Cornish families who made more noise in the world than those to whom we have been referring; for they and the Albalandas also married with Arundell, Bassett, St. Aubyn, Lower, Godolphin, Carminow, and Trevanion.

He who married Elizabeth St. Aubyn for his first wife was one Richard Boscawen, who paid a fine of five pounds rather than undergo the expensive ceremony of being made a Knight of the Bath at the coronation of Henry VII., possibly because he was an old man, and dreaded a long journey to the metropolis, for he died four years afterwards, in 1489. His grandson, Hugh, who by the way married Phelip, a daughter of the fine old Cornish family of Carminow, now extinct, paid a similar fine of four marks at the coronation of Queen Mary; for what reason I know not. In the 'Bayliff of Blackmore' there is a long story of his being outwitted by a family in Truro; but the course pursued by these Boscawens, as narrated in that curious MS., was not unusual in those days. With the great-grandson of the last-named Hugh, himself bearing the same Christian name, commences, so far as I am aware, a more particular connexion of the family with the ancient borough, now the city, of Truro, where the principal street (formerly two streets, then bearing other names, but now thrown into one) is still called after them, 'Boscawen.' He was chosen Knight of the Shire for Cornwall in 1626; and Edward, his fifth son, who represented Tregony in Parliament, was one of the leading members of the House of Commons, temp. Charles II. This Hugh, who was 'Chief of the Coat Armour' at the Heralds' Visitation of Cornwall in 1620, was likewise in that year Recorder of the Borough. He had three sons: Hugh,[83] of whom nothing seems to be known except that he married a Clinton; Edward, a rich Turkey merchant, who was a Member of Parliament, temp. Charles II., and died at Trefusis, a lovely place overlooking the waters of Falmouth Harbour; and Nicholas, who joined the Parliamentary army (a rare thing, by the way, for a Cornish gentleman to do) with a troop raised from among his own tenantry. But the military career of Nicholas Boscawen (how terminated I have not been able to ascertain) must have been a short one; for, when only twenty-two years of age and unmarried, he was buried in Westminster Abbey, whence his remains were removed some fifteen years afterwards, at the Restoration, to be flung into a common pit in St. Margaret's churchyard.

We now approach that part of the family history when the individual members cannot be quite so rapidly dismissed from notice.

The only son of Edward Boscawen (the Turkey merchant) and Jael Godolphin was another Hugh; who, like his father and uncles, seems to have been no friend to the Stuarts, and to have assisted in bringing to England William III. This no doubt explains his being made Captain of St. Mawes Castle, Warden of the Stannaries, Steward of the Duchy of Cornwall in the room of Francis Godolphin, Viscount Rialton; Comptroller of the Household; a Privy Councillor; and finally, in 1720, his being ennobled by the titles of Baron Boscawen Rose and Viscount Falmouth. He was also Vice-Treasurer of Ireland, a post which he resigned the year of his death. He several times, before gaining his title, sat for Cornwall in Parliament; but gave up all his appointments except that of Warden of the Stannaries, on the defeat of the Excise Scheme.

Hugh Boscawen seems to have been quite carried away by his political zeal, for he was foremost in arresting, or trying to arrest, any, even of his old friends, who were suspected of holding high monarchical principles; amongst whom may be named Sir Richard Vyvyan, of Trelowarren, and, as we have already seen,[84] Mr. Basset, of Tehidy. He died of an apoplexy, at Trefusis, in 1734, having married, in 1700, Charlotte Godfrey, a niece of the great Duke of Marlborough, by whom he had eighteen children, eight sons and ten daughters.

The second Viscount of the same name seems, though of a kind and gentle disposition, not to have possessed a very brilliant intellect. Davies Gilbert tells the story of him that he is said to have mistaken the phrase, 'Optat ephippia _Bos_,' for the Latin of his own name; and that he always confounded Horace Walpole with the Roman poet whose name is so familiar to us. Probably a somewhat unattractive sort of man, for his wife often threatened, so Mrs. Delany says, that she 'wou'd part with my lord.'

Yet he was not without shrewdness, and had some political influence. Votes which overthrew Sir Robert Walpole were carried against the Minister by his losing the majority of the Scotch and Cornish boroughs; the latter of which were managed by Lord Falmouth and Thomas Pitt. Indeed, the second Viscount Falmouth, like so many others of his contemporaries, was a great dealer in boroughs. It is of him that Dodington tells the story, that he went to the Minister to ask him a favour, which the latter seemed unwilling to grant; upon which Lord Falmouth said, 'Remember, sir, _we_ are _seven_!' And Dover says that Lord Cowper resigned the Bedchamber on the 'Beefeaters' being given to Lord Falmouth:--'The latter, who is powerful in elections, insisted on having it; the other had nothing but a promise from the King, which the Ministry had already twice forced him to break.'

He was also Yeoman of the Guard to George II., and in 1745, according to Chauncey, raised a regiment at his own expense to serve against the Scotch rebels; and he had such influence in Cornwall that 6,387 persons joined an association, the members of which bound themselves to appear armed in the best manner they could, under his command, to defend the King and the Government. Mrs. Thomson, in her 'Memoirs of Viscountess Sandon,' tells us how the second Viscount's wife, H. C. M. Russell, _née_ Smith, was in desperate straits to get herself appointed a Lady of the Bedchamber, and wrote the most pressing letters to Mrs. Clayton on the subject. In one she says that she could not sleep a wink all night for thinking of it!

His brother Nicholas went to Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, took holy orders, and on the Duke of Newcastle's visit to the University, as Chancellor, was created a D.D. He was appointed a King's Chaplain, and 'Dean' of Buryan in 1756, Rector of St. Mabyn and of St. Michael Penkivel in 1774, and a Prebendary of Westminster in 1777. The only remarkable thing about him seems to have been his appointment as 'Dean' of Buryan, the exact significance of which dignity it is difficult to discover, though it is said that this 'Deanery' had jurisdiction over three parishes, and the probate of wills therein, and that there were three prebends attached to it; it is not uninteresting to note this tendency in a member of the Boscawen family to 'hark back to their early St. Buryan haunts.[85] His wife, Mrs. Hatton, was, I believe, the widow of a linendraper in Newgate Street.

There was another brother, John--a Major-General in the army;--and the 4th son of the second Viscount, the Hon. George Boscawen, was another military member of the family; he was present at the battles of Dettingen and Fontenoy, and represented Truro in Parliament from 1761 to 1764. His daughter, Mary, maid-of-honour to the Princess Charlotte, wrote a memoir of the Princess.

William Boscawen, younger son of the above General George Boscawen, was educated at Eton, where he became a great favourite of Dr. Barnard. He became a Gentleman Commoner of Exeter College, and on settling in London studied law under a Cornish lawyer, Mr. Justice Buller, about 1770, and went the Western Circuit. William Boscawen does not appear to have taken his degree at Oxford; but Wordsworth, in his 'Scholæ Academicæ,' points out that it was not unusual during the last century, and at the commencement of the present, for gentlemen intending for the law to leave the University without taking a degree. He published two or three law treatises, was a Commissioner in Bankruptcy, and in 1785 he was made a Commissioner of the Victualling Office. By his marriage with Charlotte Ibbetson he had five daughters. He was much attached to literary pursuits, and translated, first the 'Odes,' 'Epodes,' and 'Carmen Seculare' of Horace, then the 'Satires,' 'Epistles,' and 'Art of Poetry;'--and in many respects his translation was considered superior to Francis's. He was much indebted for his 'notes' to Dr. Foster, of Eton College. In 1801, he published some original poems and other works. A friend who met him in the Strand a few days before his death noticed that he was looking very ill; and on the 8th May, 1811, he died of asthma, at Little Chelsea. He was of an affectionate and benevolent disposition; and the Literary Fund he considered almost as his own child, writing the annual verses for it till within five years of his death.

A contemporary critic says of his literary productions, that if in them 'he does not take a lead among his contemporaries, he at least discovers an elegant taste, a poetical mind, and a correct versification.' 'Could his character be truly drawn, it would exhibit a consummate picture of everything that is amiable and estimable in human nature.' 'Incapable of _being_ an enemy, it was never known that he had one; and his friends were as numerous as his virtues.'

As a specimen of his powers as a translator, his rendering of the well-known fifth ode of the 1st Book of Horace, will, I venture to think, compare, not altogether unfavourably, with the productions of his mightier predecessors in the task--Milton and Cowley.

'What youth bedew'd with moist perfume
Courts thee, O Pyrrha! graceful maid,
With neat simplicity array'd
In the sweet bower where roses bloom?

'For whom dost thou in ringlets form
Thy golden locks?--Oft shall he wail
Thy truth, swift changing as the gale,
View the wild waves, and shudder at the storm.

'Who now, all credulous and gay,
Enjoys thy smile? on whose vain pride
Thy fickle favour shines untry'd,
And soft, deceitful breezes play?

'My fate the pictur'd wreck displays;
The dripping garments that remain
In mighty Neptune's sacred fane
Record my glad escape, my grateful praise.'

But a third brother of the second Viscount--Edward, the Admiral--was destined to live in the pages of history; and of him I propose to treat more at length at the conclusion of this brief sketch of the family generally, which now draws rapidly to a close.

George Evelyn, the Admiral's youngest son, was the third Viscount, issue having failed through his two uncles, and George Evelyn's brothers having died before the death of their uncle, the second Viscount. Of these brothers it may be observed, that Edward Hugh,[86] the eldest, who was M.P. for Truro, died abroad in 1774; and that William Glanville, a youth of great promise, and an officer in the navy, was drowned when eighteen years of age, in 1769, whilst bathing at Port Royal, Jamaica. In him, said Mrs. Delany, 'his father's (the Admiral's) merit revived,' and he was 'the delight and glory of the lives of his mother and sisters.' I hardly know whether the following lines on his death are from Mrs. Delany's pen, or from his mother's:

'Ah, William! till thy hapless hour
Shall fade on mem'ry's pensive eye
The muse on Fate shall curses shower,
That doomed a youth like thee to die.

'Though lost, alas! thy lovely name
With incense shall the skies perfume;
And ev'ry flower of fairest fame
Shall wish where William sleeps, to bloom.

'Till Virtue seek her native sphere,
Till honour cease below to shine,
For thee shall Virtue drop the tear,
And Honour's envied praise be thine.'

There can, however, be little doubt that it was a mother's pen which described him, on his cenotaph, as that 'most lovely, most beloved youth.'

But to return to the surviving and youngest brother, George Evelyn, who was destined to perpetuate the title. He is said to have been very like his mother, who describes herself as 'a little personage;' and he must have inherited the talents of both his parents, for he did remarkably well at Winchester, and very early showed a determination to follow in his illustrious father's footsteps by fighting against the enemies of his country, notwithstanding the wishes of his family to the contrary. For the sum of £400 his mother at last unwillingly procured for her 'poor little soldier,' as she termed him, an ensigncy in the 4th or King's Own Regiment of Foot; and he, proceeding forthwith to America, was soon after present at the battle of Lexington. When Prince William Henry, afterwards William IV., came into Falmouth harbour in the _Hebe_ in 1785, he was entertained at Tregothnan, and thence, under Viscount Falmouth's guidance, visited all the Cornish 'lions.' On 25th October, 1787, Mrs. Boscawen writes thus to Mrs. Delany: 'My son has been a peacemaker in Cornwall, and was happy enough to pacify near a thousand angry miners, who were marching into Truro to pull their houses about their ears;' and here it may be noted that one of his ancestors had performed a similar valuable public service when the Hon. Hugh Boscawen, Lord Warden of the Stannaries of Cornwall and Devon, presided over the Convocation of the twenty-four Stannators, 20th February to 20th April, 1710, held in the Coinage Hall, Truro; on which occasion, by a judicious speech, he dispersed a mob of some 5,000 or 6,000 men, tinners and others, led by one Charles Tregea, who had assembled to intimidate the Convocation, and 'force them to a farm.' The object of this Convocation was 'to keep up the price of tin, and to confirm the laws, customs, and constitutions of the Stannaries;' but it led to no satisfactory result.

The third Viscount's two sisters married well--one, Frances, gained for her husband the Hon. John Leveson Gower, Secretary to the Admiralty; and the other, Elizabeth, secured Henry, fifth Duke of Beaufort--an affair which does not seem to have altogether satisfied that family. Her mother writes to Mrs. Delany, that the Beauforts were not particularly well pleased with the match;--'And yet, my dear madam,' says the sprightly Admiral's widow, 'does not Admiral Boscawen's daughter, with £10,000 now, and at least 5 (_i.e._ £5,000) more by-and-by, with many excellent wife-like qualities, and no faults that ever they heard of, deserve some gentler welcome, _especially as nobody asks anything of them_?' The Duke seems to have made the Cornish lassie a most devoted and affectionate husband.

George Evelyn Boscawen was succeeded in the title by his son, Edward, fourth Viscount and first Earl of Falmouth. He was an officer in the Coldstream Guards, and, like so many other members of his family, Recorder of Truro--the last who filled that office. He was the second of Lord Winchelsea in his famous duel with the Duke of Wellington, fought on Wimbledon Common in March, 1829, when the Duke fired and missed, and Lord Winchelsea then fired in the air and apologized. This nobleman rebuilt Tregothnan House, near the site of an older and picturesque mansion, in which might have been seen many carved stones from the old tower and chapel at Fentongollan; and he made the famous drive to it from Tresilian Bridge, an undertaking the result of which he is said to have always contemplated with much satisfaction. His son, George Henry, fifth Viscount, and second and last Earl, died unmarried in 1852, fourteen years after his father. He was a man of considerable ability, taking, in 1832, a first-class at Oxford; and he was one of the best amateur violinists of his day. As we have said, with him the earldom lapsed. His cousin Evelyn succeeded him as sixth Viscount, and has been one of the most distinguished patrons of the turf, as well as a most fortunate owner of race-horses, having, as I am informed, won the Derby, the St. Leger, and the Two Thousand Guineas twice, and the Oaks and the One Thousand Guineas four times each; besides other important races.

_ADMIRAL THE RIGHT HON. EDWARD BOSCAWEN._

'My lov'd Boscawen dead! 'tis all a lye--
Fame's trumpet sounds "He cannot, shall not die--
At Lagos still triumphant he survives,
And still at Louisbourg immortal lives."'

_Gentleman's Magazine_, Jan., 1761.

'A great Admiral.'

PITT.

The foregoing sketch of the history of the Boscawens seemed desirable in order to give the reader some idea of the sources from which Pitt's 'great Admiral' sprang, and to serve as a background to the family picture in which his figure is the most prominent. We have seen that the Boscawens were an ancient, wealthy, and not altogether undistinguished group of Cornishmen; and have noted that their seat had for ages been on the banks of that sylvan river which empties its waters into the once renowned Falmouth Haven. Here Edward Boscawen, third son of the first Viscount, was born on the 19th August, 1711; and, notwithstanding the absence (so far as I am aware) of any published details concerning the childhood and youth of the illustrious sailor, except the fact of his quaint humour in imitating the gestures of an old servant till he himself contracted a constant habit of carrying his head slightly on one side[87]--there can be little doubt, I think, that a good deal of the young sea-dog's leisure was spent on, or in, the Fal, which washes the shores of his ancestral woods and glades. We know, indeed, that he entered the navy whilst _very young_ (when only twelve years old, so Campbell says), and this suggests the idea that the future 'old Dreadnought' may have found the limits of the sequestered Tregothnan estate and the quiet life led there incompatible with the high spirits which a lad of his quality must undoubtedly have possessed. In other words, we can but believe that he was a born sailor, and that he merited, from the first, another of his sobriquets,--derived from the heroic contempt of danger which he manifested throughout his life--'the brave Boscawen.' He no doubt expected that, in accordance with the practice of a century and a half ago, through family interest he would very shortly obtain his lieutenancy, when an order was suddenly and unexpectedly issued, subjecting all midshipmen to at least six years' service. 'To this order,' Boscawen used to say, 'I owe all my knowledge of seamanship.' At any rate, the new regulation did not change his views, nor prevent many other Cornish youngsters from entering the navy and serving under an officer who was as fond of having them about him as they were of sailing under his command. Amongst such may be named the Hon. George Edgcumbe,[88] afterwards Admiral of the White, who commanded the _Lancaster_ of seventy guns at the famous siege of Louisbourg (of which we shall hear more by-and-by); and Admiral Sir Richard Spry, who commanded a similar ship, the _Oxford_, on that occasion.

And here it should be remembered how different in many respects is the position of the modern British sailor--true Briton as he still is, and is proving himself to be at Alexandria even whilst I write these lines--from the traditional sailor of Boscawen's days. Now, most of the sailors' work in our steam iron-clads is done on deck or below; but, at the period of which we are about to consider some episodes, the larger proportion--certainly the more difficult--was performed aloft. In weather of all sorts 'there were dead-eyes to turn in, there were chafing gear to look after, reef-points to knot, masts to stay, studding-sail gear to reeve, and the like.' Then the wild excitement of going aloft to shorten sail in stormy weather! The old songs at the reef-tackles, the flapping of the canvas, the springing into the shrouds, and the helter-skelter race for the weather-earing--unless, indeed, the iron-hard pressure of the gale pinned you against the shrouds as if you had been a spread-eagle. In work of this sort the English tars were always pre-eminent, and one can easily believe that the Admiral accordingly had a thoroughly hearty contempt for the unsailor-like character of the French crews. Of one he said he 'never saw so bad a crew on salt water before; there were not twenty men on board who could go aloft.'[89] Those, too, were days not only of rough work, but also of rough-and-ready fighting; and Boscawen's motto, like that of Hawke,[90] his illustrious contemporary and rival, was always, 'Strike.' One night Boscawen's lieutenant came to him, and awoke him, saying that they had fallen in with three ships of the enemy. 'What shall we do?' 'Why, fight 'em, to be sure!' said Boscawen; and, dashing up on deck in his night shirt, he soon compelled the enemy to sheer off. It was from this action that he is said to have acquired the name of Old Dreadnought. On another occasion he took off his wig, and with it stopped a leak in his boat, which was rapidly sinking.

As we have seen, he was the third son of the first Viscount Falmouth, and was called Edward after his grandfather. His grandmother, Jael, was of the fine old Cornish stock of Godolphin, and his mother was Charlotte Godfrey, a niece of the great Duke of Marlborough, not a natural daughter (as Hals says) of James II., by Arabella Churchill, but her eldest daughter, by Colonel Charles Godfrey, Master of the Jewel Office, whom she had subsequently married;--so that he seems to have had royal as well as good fighting blood in his veins, some of which he was destined to shed for his country. I do not know at what date he received his lieutenant's commission; probably it was on being appointed to the _Hector_ in 1732; but on the 12th March, 1737, when not quite twenty-six years old, he was appointed captain of the _Leopard_, a fourth-rate of fifty guns. On the outbreak of the war with Spain, he was transferred to the _Shoreham_ of twenty guns, and was sent to cruise off Jamaica. Unfortunately, when Admiral Vernon determined, in November, 1740, on attacking Porto Bello (a place which Columbus had discovered and named in 1562, and which had once before succumbed to a British Admiral, Sir Francis Drake, in 1596), the _Shoreham_ was found to be unfit for action; but Boscawen would not be deprived of this chance of seeing some active service, so he sailed as a volunteer, and so far distinguished himself at the easy capture of the place--for the garrison was on a peace footing, and the British lost only seven men--that he was entrusted with the duty of superintending the demolition of the fortifications.

Rejoining the _Shoreham_, which had now been thoroughly overhauled, we next hear of him, in March, 1740-41, at the siege of Carthagena, the chief port in New Granada, again under Admiral Vernon, who is described as a man of fair abilities, but of harsh overbearing temper;--one of those naval heroes of whom Byron sourly says in his 'Don Juan:'

'They filled their sign-posts then like Wellesley now.'

Here again he gathered laurels, and attracted considerable notice by what Campbell describes as his 'quick-sighted judgment and intrepid valour,' commanding a detachment of 300 sailors and 200 soldiers, and storming a fascine battery on Boca Chica, which had much galled General Wentworth, and held our forces in check.

Campbell thus describes Boscawen's part in the affair, which reminds us of the recent gallant rush on Tel-el-Kebir:[91]

'Pushing forward with a strength equal to their animation, they soon
climbed the entrenchments, and entering the embrasures in the face of
a continued fire, and on the very muzzles of the guns, they drove the
enemy from the works with considerable slaughter; and after spiking
the cannon and burning the platforms, together with the gun-carriages,
guard-house, and magazine, Boscawen led off his detachment in order,
and returned to the fleet with six wounded prisoners. The Spaniards,
fully sensible of the support which this battery had afforded them,
were indefatigable in their endeavours to repair it; and having in
a few days so far succeeded as to be able to bring six guns to bear
upon the English fleet, Boscawen was again ordered to reduce it, but
in a manner which exposed him less to personal danger than in the
service in which it was before deemed expedient to employ him. He
was directed to proceed with his own ship, the _Shoreham_, together
with the _Princess Amelia_ and the _Lichfield_, as close inshore as
the depth of the water would admit them (a dangerous enterprise in
consequence of the difficulties of the navigation here), to anchor
abreast of the battery, and to bring the ships' broadsides to bear
upon it; whilst, on the other hand, a detachment of seamen, under the
command of Captains Watson, Cotes, and Dennis, were at the same time
to storm it. These measures, taken with so much skill and prudence,
would in all probability have ensured the success of the attack;
but the Spaniards, intimidated by the formidable appearance of the
assailants, _abandoned the battery without firing a shot_.'

But the place was too strongly fortified; and the siege of Carthagena was soon after raised (a circumstance which, by the way, tended to hasten the fall of Walpole). Yet before Boscawen left he was again employed, as at Porto Bello, to rase the different forts which the English had taken on the neighbouring coast; and, whilst engaged on this service, was appointed to the _Prince Frederick_, of 70 guns, on the death of Lord Aubrey Beauclerk, who gallantly fell at Boca Chica.

Clinton observes that the siege lasted from January to 24th April, 1741; and that as the surf prevented a bombardment from the sea, it was determined to make a lodging on Boca Chica, in order to reduce the fort there. The long-standing jealousy between the navy and the army was, he thinks, the cause of the failure of the siege. However that may be, three thousand men were lost by assaults and sickness; and the fleet returned to Jamaica.

On the 14th May, 1742, Boscawen reached home, or rather St. Helen's, Isle of Wight, bringing advices of Admiral Vernon's having sailed on a fresh expedition, which unfortunately proved abortive. But this year was memorable in his life for other than warlike exploits; for its close witnessed his marriage with the graceful, sprightly, and accomplished Frances Evelyn Glanville, of St. Clere, Kent; a lady sufficiently distinguished in her day to claim, as a Cornishman's wife, the notice which I have ventured to append to this sketch of the Admiral, her husband,--whose epitaph, glowing with eloquence, she was destined to write.

In the year that he married he was elected Member for Truro. And here it may be observed that the gallant naval officer was always extremely popular in his native county. One account states that he was 'positively adored' by the people, and that they insisted on sending him to Parliament as their representative, notwithstanding his reluctance to serve, on account of one member of his family being already there--namely, his father--in the House of Peers. Again, in 1747 he was elected for both Saltash (another old Cornish borough) and Truro; but he decided on maintaining his political connexion with the latter.

The next few months of his life would seem to have passed without any events of public interest occurring; but, early in 1744, war, arising out of the assistance given by the French to the Young Pretender's ill-starred descent upon England, broke out with France; and Boscawen was made Captain of the _Dreadnought_, of 60 guns. With her he very soon after captured the _Medea_, a French frigate of 26 guns and 240 men, commanded by a M. Hocquart--whom in the course of our history we shall twice meet again as Boscawen's prisoner. This was the first prize taken in the war. For some time he continued doing what may be called home duty--cruising in the Channel, sitting on courts-martial, and acting as Commodore on board the _Royal Sovereign_, at the Nore. Whilst acting in the latter capacity it fell within his province to send out several of the newly-pressed men as they were brought to him in company with some experienced seamen, in frigates and small vessels, to guard the mouths of many of the minor creeks and rivers along the shores of Kent and Sussex.

In January, 1746, he was appointed to the _Namur_, formerly of 90 guns, but afterwards reduced to a third-rate; and in November of that year, being in command of a small squadron at the mouth of the Channel, he captured two prizes--one a large privateer from St. Malo, the other a despatch-boat from M. De Jonquiere (the commander of the French fleet on the American station), with advices of the death of the Duc D'Anville, and of the consequent failure of the expedition under that officer's command.

We now approach the time when he was to receive his first wound of consequence, and to perform one of the most gallant and self-denying exploits of his brave career--a deed so daring and so brilliantly successful as to excite the jealousy of Anson, his superior officer, and thus to lay the foundation of an ill-feeling between those two gallant seamen which, it is to be feared, can be traced throughout their lives.

In 1747, whilst commanding a line-of-battle ship in the fleet intended for America, under Admirals Anson and Vernon, he was present at the gallant action of the 3rd May, off Cape Finisterre. 'Here,' says Campbell, 'Boscawen signalized himself equally by his heroism and his judgment. The French fleet, having got the weather-gage, kept up a constant and well-directed fire on the English ships as they turned to windward to form the line abreast of the enemy. But Boscawen, perceiving that our ships would thereby be disabled before their guns could be brought to bear upon the French line, and his ship being a very superior sailer to any of the rest, and being, besides, the leading ship of the van, pressed forward with a crowd of sail, received himself the greatest part of the enemy's fire, and singly maintained the conflict until the remainder of the fleet came up to his support; by which daring but judicious manœuvre _he principally contributed_ to the success with which on that day the British arms were crowned.[92] On this occasion he was severely wounded in the shoulder by a musket-ball. His country, however, was not long deprived of his services by this misfortune, from the effects of which he recovered in a few weeks.' At Finisterre all the French ships, ten in number, were taken, including the _Diamant_, of 56 tons, commanded by M. Hocquart, who thus became, for the second time, Boscawen's prisoner.

Shortly after being made Rear-Admiral of the Blue, he was invested with a command which shows the remarkable estimation in which he was held by the Government, receiving, as he did, a commission from the King as Admiral and Commandant of a squadron of six ships of the line and five frigates, with 2,000 soldiers on board, ordered for the East Indies; and also as General and Commander-in-Chief of the land forces employed in the expedition--'the only instance, except that of the Earl of Peterborough, of any officer having received such a command since the reign of Charles II.' Yet, such were his tact and personal character, that no ill-feeling arose on the part of the troops thus placed under his command--in fact, as an officer, quoted by Campbell, quaintly says, 'the Admiral, by his genteel behaviour, gained the love of the land officers, and never was greater harmony among all degrees of men than in this expedition;' notwithstanding which it failed in effecting the main objects which it had in view, viz. the capture of Pondicherry, and the attack on Port Louis, Mauritius, _en route_ thither. He sailed from St. Helen's on the 4th November, 1747; but owing to bad weather and contrary winds, did not reach the Cape of Good Hope till the 29th March, 1748; and here he remained a short time to refresh his jaded crews.

The difficulties of the landing at Port Louis, and the strength of the batteries by which it was defended, were such as to triumph over even the genius and courage of Boscawen; and after vain though most strenuous search for a practicable landing-place, the Admiral called a council of war, at which it was determined that a small boat-party should land during the night with a view to capturing (if possible) at least one man of the enemy, from whom they might obtain information as to the numbers and situation of the French forces. This ingenious attempt, however, failed; and at a second council of war it was agreed that the attack on Port Louis, even if it succeeded (which was doubtful), would necessitate the leaving behind so large a force to occupy the place, that it would imperil the chances of capturing Pondicherry, the principal object of the expedition; and to this it may be added that Boscawen had lost many of his men from their eating a poisonous fish called the vieille, at the island of Roderique.

They accordingly sailed at once for Fort St. David, near Pondicherry, which place they reached on the 29th July; and here Boscawen took over the command, from Admiral Griffin, of what had now become the largest 'marine force belonging to any one European nation that had ever been seen in the Indian seas.' Boscawen marched forward with his army on the 8th of August, and opened the trenches on the 27th. But his men rapidly grew sick in that unwholesome climate; his chief engineer was killed; the monsoons were shortly expected. It was found that the garrison far outnumbered the besiegers, and, 'everything having been done which gallantry and perseverance could perform,' writes Walpole, on the 6th October it was finally determined to raise the siege.[93] And a gale, on 14th April, 1749, arose, which seems to have been the main cause of the unsuccessful termination of the whole expedition--the Admiral's flag-ship, the _Namur_, foundered; the _Pembroke_ and the _Apollo_ (hospital ship) were also lost, together with a very large proportion of their crews. Providentially, our Admiral and General was on shore at the time.

Not long afterwards peace was declared at Aix-la-Chapelle, and Boscawen had, at least, the gratification of having Madras delivered up to him.

In April, 1750, he returned to England in the _Exeter_, to find that during his absence he had been appointed Rear-Admiral of the White; and additional honours soon after fell to his lot. In 1751 he was made a Lord Commissioner of the Admiralty, and at the Board's meetings found many opportunities of falling foul of his old foe, Anson, whom he always suspected, perhaps without sufficient cause, of having sent him on what the former knew from the beginning would be the fruitless expedition to Pondicherry. This suspicion, however, would seem to be confirmed by a letter from Walpole to Mann, dated 31st January, 1750, in which the writer says that Boscawen was unfortunate during the whole expedition (East Indies), and that Anson sent him upon it 'on purpose to ruin him ... upon slight intelligence, and upon improbable views.' A jealousy, as we have seen, had previously arisen between the two Admirals over the Cape Finisterre affair, when Boscawen complained loudly of Anson's behaviour. In July, 1751, he was made an Elder Brother of the Trinity House; and in May, 1754, he was, for the third time, chosen to represent in the House of Commons his old borough of Truro, between which and himself there had existed so long and friendly a connexion;--and now, 'for want of something better to do,' as one of his biographers insinuates, he became a zealous politician.

In 1755 he was made Vice-Admiral of the Blue; and, the French beginning to display ambitious projects in America, Boscawen was despatched from Spithead on 19th April, with a strong fleet, to frustrate their designs. The French Admiral was M. Bois de la Motte, and he had a large and powerful armament of twenty-five ships of the line, and other vessels, together with a train of artillery, etc., etc. Boscawen's force consisted of eleven sail and a frigate, together with two regiments of infantry. He was, however, afterwards reinforced by six ships of the line and another frigate under the command of Rear-Admiral Holbourne. The English ships waited for the Frenchmen off Cape Ray, Newfoundland; but in a fog the French Admiral eluded his antagonists, and contrived to get his ships (with two exceptions) into harbour. These two ships Boscawen captured on the 10th June, after a gallant engagement of five hours. They contained £80,000 in specie, a large number of French officers, and altogether 1,500 prisoners. The two French ships were the _Alcide_ and _Lys_ (each of 64 guns), which were taken by the _Defiance_ and the _Dunkirk_. Again Boscawen took the first French ships during the war; and again found his old acquaintance, M. Hocquart, on board one of them, who thus for the third time became the British Admiral's prisoner of war. The story of the action is thus graphically told by Lord Mahon:

'Only the day before King George III. embarked at Harwich (for his
usual summer residence at his beloved Hanover, notwithstanding the
strong feeling which existed against his leaving the kingdom at so
critical a time) Admiral Boscawen, with eleven ships of the line and
two regiments on board, set sail from Portsmouth. His orders were to
follow a large French armament which had recently been equipped at
Brest, and to attack it if designed for the Bay of St. Lawrence. A
thick fog off Newfoundland concealed the rival fleets from each other;
but two English ships, the first commanded by Captain (afterwards
Lord) Howe, came within speech of two French ships. The foreign
commandant inquired if it was war or peace. Howe replied that he must
wait for his Admiral's signal, but that he advised the Frenchman to
prepare for war. Ere long appeared Boscawen's signal for engaging;
Howe attacked, and after an engagement, in which he displayed equal
skill and intrepidity, succeeded in taking the two French ships--the
_Alcide_ and the _Lys_. The rest of the French armament--eight or nine
ships of the line--got safe into the harbour of Louisbourg; and their
safety caused as great disappointment in England as the capture of
their consorts irritation in France. The French Ambassador in London,
M. de Mirepoix, was recalled at these tidings, yet still there was not
on either side a formal declaration of war.'

On the 15th November, Boscawen returned to England with his prizes and his prisoners, and anchored at Spithead.

In the following year, 1756, he commanded the squadron in the Bay of Quiberon, stationed there for the purpose of watching the French fleet; but, so far as I am aware, was engaged in no important active service on that occasion. His leisure, however, gave him an opportunity of showing the interest he took in the welfare of his men, as well as his resource in alleviating the tedium of their unoccupied time, by setting them to work to cultivate a barren island, and converting it into a fruitful garden, whose produce was an extremely welcome adjunct to the invariable salt junk and biscuit of those days. Promotions, however, came, and he was made, at short intervals, successively Vice-Admiral of the White and of the Red.

But the year 1758 proved more eventful for our hero; and is perhaps the most memorable in his annals, for it witnessed his gallant attack and capture of Louisbourg--'once mistress of the seas,' and 'the key to French America,' but now consisting of a few fishermen's huts and some moss-covered ruins. This event directly led to the conquest of Canada.

On the 28th of May, being now full Admiral, he sailed from his old starting-point, St. Helen's. And here it may be well, in order to understand the importance of the service on which Boscawen was now engaged, to take a rapid glance at the general position of affairs.