give forty pounds to my servant, William Scoates, if he be with me at the time of my decease, and twenty pounds each to my two female servants at present with me."

The property was sworn to be under 80,000l.

Principally from "The Gentleman's Magazine."

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of 28 guns, in which he cruised on the Irish station under the orders of Admiral Kingsmill, till July, 1795, when he superseded Captain Reynolds in the command of the Druid, of 32 guns.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.

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 flag 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. But 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.

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.