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ment of it, with the very extensive literary correspondence which that involved, and the constant superintendence of the press, would have been more than enough to occupy entirely any man but one of first-rate energies.

No man ever conducted business of all sorts in a more direct and manly manner. His opinion was on all occasions distinctly expressed; his questions were ever explicit; his answers conclusive. His sincerity might sometimes be considered rough: but no human being ever accused him either of flattering or of shuffling; and those men of letters who were in frequent communication with him soon conceived a respect for and confidence in him, which, save in a very few instances, ripened into cordial regard and friendship. The masculine steadiness and imperturbable resolution of his character were impressed on all his proceedings; and it will be allowed by those who watched him through his career, as the publisher of a literary and political miscellany, that those qualities were more than once very severely tested. He dealt by parties exactly as he did by individuals. Whether his principles were right or wrong, they were his, and he never compromised or complimented away one tittle of them. No changes, either of men or of measures, ever dimmed his eye, or checked his courage.

To youthful merit he was a ready and a generous friend; and to literary persons of good moral character, when involved in pecuniary distress, he delighted to extend a bountiful hand. He was in all respects a man of large and liberal heart and temper.

During some of the best years of his life he found time, in the midst of his own pressing business, to take rather a prominent part in the affairs of the city of Edinburgh, as a magistrate; and it must be admitted by those who most closely observed, and even by those who most constantly opposed, him in that capacity, that he exhibited, on all occasions, perfect fairness of purpose, and often, in the conduct of debate, and the management of less vigorous minds, a very rare degree of tact and sagacity. His complete personal

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293

No. XXIII.

SIR RICHARD KING,

THE SECOND BARONET, OF BELLEVUE IN KENT (1792), G.C.B.; VICE-ADMIRAL OF THE RED, AND COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF AT THE NORE.

THIS worthy and distinguished officer was born on the 28th of September, 1771. He was the elder son, by Susannah Margaret, daughter of William Coker of Mapowder, in Dorsetshire, Esq., of Admiral Sir Richard King, M. P. for Rochester, who was the nephew and protégé of the celebrated Commodore Curtis Barnet, and was successively knighted and created a baronet for his distinguished services in India. Under such auspices, the early career of young King was sufficiently clear; and being entered on the books in his boyish years, he was in several of the ships commanded by his father. When of age, he received post rank and a frigate, the Aurora, of 28 guns, in which he cruised on the Irish station under the orders of Admiral Kingsmill, till July, 1795, when he superseded Captain Reynolds in the command of the Druid, of 32 guns.

The services of this ship were rather arduous than brilliant, exchanging occasionally Channel-groping for convoys to and from the coast of Portugal. On the 7th of January, 1797, she took a large French transport, La Ville de l'Orient, which was one of the unfortunate expedition under Morard de Galles against Ireland. In the summer of the same year he removed into the Sirius, a frigate of 36 guns, with 18-pounders on her main-deck; and was placed under the orders of Lord Duncan, off the Texel.

US

On the 24th of October, 1798, while reconnoitring the port, Captain King fell in with two Dutch ships of war, a frigate and a corvette; and as they were about a couple of miles asunder, and incapable of supporting each other, he most gallantly determined to attack them in succession. In chasing to windward, he soon discovered that he had the heels of them; so that, passing the frigate within gun-shot, he stood on for the corvette, and compelled her to haul down her colours. Possession being taken, he then stood after the larger ship, which had fled under every stitch of canvass she could carry. After a beautiful chase, and a running action of about half an hour, within musket-shot, she also surrendered. They proved to be the Furie, of 36 guns, and the Waakzaamheid, of 24 guns: they had escaped from the Texel the preceding night, with French troops and arms on board for Ireland. The Dutch frigate suffered a loss of 8 men killed and 14 wounded; but the Sirius had only one of her crew wounded, and that not badly, by a musket-ball. Both ships were taken into the service, the frigate under the name of the Wilhelmina, and the corvette retaining its own jawbreaking appellation.

This action is remarkable as having been the occasion of a singular and fatal error in judgment. A British sloop-of-war was no very distant spectator of the surrender of the Dutch corvette; but the Captain, although strenuously urged by his officers to stand on and join the combat, most obstinately refused. He had unfortunately adopted a notion that all the three vessels were enemies, and the engagement between them a mere feint, with a view of decoying him within gun-shot: his private signal had been answered by Captain King; but in this he placed no confidence, and this deplorable self-delusion continued until the business was decided. Convinced at length of his error, he sunk into a melancholy despondency: Lord Duncan, under whom he had distinguished himself the previous year, in the battle of Camperdown, refused to see him; and a few weeks afterwards he fell by his own hand.

The Sirius subsequently made several captures on the coast of France, but afforded her captain no other opportunity of particular distinction. On the 26th of January, 1801, she joined the celebrated chase of the Dédaigneuse, a 36-gun French frigate, which, after a hard pursuit of two days, and a running fight of three quarters of an hour, was compelled to submit to the Oiseau and Sirius: the Amethyst had also fallen into the train, but was unable to get up till the ship was captured. This was the last French frigate taken during that war; and the Sirius was the only British ship struck by her shot.

After the Sirius was paid off in 1802 Captain King remained on shore till he was appointed to the Achille, of 74 guns, in 1805; and in August of the same year we find him with the Dreadnought and Colossus, under Collingwood, before Cadiz, -from whence they were chased by the combined fleets. But Captain King obtained full satisfaction for this, in the following October, in being one of Nelson's fleet in the glorious conflict off Cape Trafalgar, when he engaged the Spanish line-of-battle ships Montanez and Argonaute in succession, making the one sheer off and the other strike. Two Frenchmen, one of them the Berwick, and the other the Achille, his own ship's namesake, now came up and prevented his taking the prize. A warm and desperate action ensued between our Achille and her new antagonists, which ended in the Berwick hauling down her colours and being taken possession of. In these gallant encounters the Achille had 13 men killed and 59 wounded. In the following year Captain King was present at the capture of four large French frigates, when Sir Samuel Hood lost his arm.

In November, 1806, Captain King succeeded to the baronetcy, by the death of his father. He afterwards served in the blockade of Ferrol, and the defence of Cadiz, where a detachment of the Achille's crew were distributed into some gun-boats, under the orders of Lieutenant Pearse. From Cadiz, Sir Richard proceeded to join the fing of Sir Charles

Cotton, as Captain of the Mediterranean fleet; and he afterwards served in the same capacity with that Admiral in the Channel fleet.

Sir Richard was included in the flag promotion of August, 1812, and joined Sir Edward Pellew's fleet off Toulon in the San Josef, of 112 guns. In this ship he was one of those who, in November, 1813, were able to close with the French squadron under Admiral Emeriau, who had his flag flying in that noble ship the Wagram, of 130 guns. the French having the weather-gage, in a few moments got out of gun-shot, and the firing, in which the batteries of Sepet had joined, ceased. The San Josef's loss amounted only to 4 wounded.

But

On the extension of the order of the Bath, Sir Richard was nominated a K.C.B. In the spring of 1816 he hoisted his flag on board the Minden, to assume the charge of the East India station, from whence he returned in October, 1820. His commission of Vice-Admiral bore date July 19. 1821, and he was nominated a Grand Cross of the Bath in 1833. His last appointment was that of Commander-in-Chief in the Medway; and he died in the Admiralty House at Sheerness, on the 5th of August, 1834, deeply lamented by his large family and numerous friends. As this excellent officer was cut off after an illness of only two days, it was at first reported that he fell under the cholera, but it proved to have been a violent attack of common dysentery. His remains were interred at East Church, in the Isle of Sheppy, with the military honours to which he was so well entitled.

Sir Richard King was twice married; first, in November, 1803, to Sarah Anne, only daughter of Admiral Sir John Thomas Duckworth, G.C.B., by whom he had issue four sons and one daughter: 1. Richard Duckworth King, born in 1804, who has succeeded to the title; 2. Anne Maria; 3. George St. Vincent, late Flag Lieutenant to his father, and since his death promoted to the rank of Commander; 4. Henry Robert Cornwallis; and, 5. John Thomas Duncan.

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