LORD EXMOUTH. Feb. 6th, at Teignmouth, Edward Pellew, Viscount Exmouth, aged 76.

Edward Pellew was born in 1757, at Dover, where the earlier years of his life were spent. His father, Samuel Pellew, of Flushing, near Falmouth, was a Cornish gentleman. He entered the navy before he was fourteen, and his first cruize was in the Juno, Cap. tain Stott. He next went with the same officer, in the Alarm, to the Mediterranean. He next sailed in the Blonde frigate; then in the Carlton schooner, where he had the first opportunity of distinguishing himself; and his conduct in the battle on Lake Champlain gave earnest of his future career. On his return to England, after the convention of Saratoga, he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant. He then joined the Apollo frigate, Captain Pownoll, then off the Flushing coast. In an engage ment with one of the enemy's cruisers, his captain was killed by his side. The command thus devolving on Mr. Pellew, he continued the attack with unabated spirit, till the cruizer took refuge under the batteries of Ostend, then a neutral port. On this occasion, the young lieutenant was made commander of the Hazard sloop. In 1782 he obtained his commission as post-captain, and was transferred to the Salisbury, off the coast of Newfoundland. The war now broke out with France, and his action with the Cleopatra, when in command of the Nymphe, was one of the most desperate ever fought; ending with the signal defeat of the French ship.

The next action, alike courageous and humane, which distinguished this excellent officer, was one which gained him the admiration of the whole civilized world. His rescue of the unfortunate crew, and those on board of the Dutton, at Plymouth, was an act of self-devotedness and heroism such as it would be difficult to surpass. The corporation of Plymouth testified their sense of his noble conduct by presenting him with their freedom. Sir Edward Pellew was soon afterwards advanced to the dignity of a baronet, and appointed to the command of the Indefatigable. He next served on the expedition against Ferrol; and in 1802 the Impeteux, which he then commanded was dismantled. About this time Sir Edward was nominated a colonel of the marines, and in the same year returned member for Barnstable. On the renewal of the war, he was appointed to the Tonnant, promoted to the rank of Vice Admiral, and finally named to the important office of Commander-in-Chief in India. Sir

Edward Pellew was next employed in the blockade of Flushing, and then Commander-in-Chief in the Mediterranean during the remainder of the war. In 1814 he was raised to the peerage by the title of Baron Exmouth, of Canonteign, in the county of Devon; immediately after he became Admiral of the Blue, and in 1815 was made a K. C. B. On the return of Napoleon from Elba, his lordship proceeded to his command in the Mediterranean assisted in the restoration of Joachim, King of Naples; in reducing the rebellious Toulonese; and concluded treaties with Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli, for the abolition of Christian slavery. On his return to England, he found that the Algerines had violated the treaty in the most flagrant manner. Government deeming it necessary to inflict signal chastisement on the refractory Dey and his nest of pirates, his lordship embarked on board the Queen Charlotte for Algiers. The records of the memorable battle of Algiers are well known. In this action Lord Exmouth was slightly wounded in the leg and the cheek, and his coat was cut to pieces by grape and musket balls. Lord Exmouth's conduct and bravery were rewarded by the thanks of both houses of Parliament, and he was raised to the rank of Viscount. After Sir Thomas Duckworth's demise he was appointed to the chief command at Plymouth; but since the year 1821, he had retired from public service. He enjoyed a pension of 20007. per annum for his naval services, conferred on him by Act of Parliament.

EARL FITZWILLIAM.

William Wentworth Fitzwilliam, Earl Fitzwilliam, died on the 9th of February, 1833, at Milton House, Northamptonshire.

This amiable and estimable nobleman is entitled to a distinguished notice in American biography-if American biog raphy may embrace those, who like Lafay ette, favoured our cause, although foreigners to our soil. Lord Fitzwilliam was known by his early patriotic opposition to the ministerial measures tending to subjugate this country; and was through a long and a spotless life, the uniform friend of freedom and humanity.

He was born May 30th, 1748, and succeeded to the earldom and a large patrimonial estate by the death of his father, when he was only eight years old. His education was commenced at Eaton School, where he was classmate with Charles James Fox, with whom he formed

an intimacy which was never interrupted, but which was ripened with their after years; and where the developement of his uncommon youthful virtues drew forth an affectionate tribute, which has been often quoted, from the contemporary muse of his poetical friend, the Earl of Carlisle. He was conspicuous at school for those benevolent qualities, carried there almost to excess, which being moulded in his constitution became tempered into habit; and blended also, with high degrees of firmness, intrepidity and independence, made the basis of his character. He pursued his studies with success at the University of Cambridge; and after passing through the most thorough preparation of manly and elegant accomplishment for all the duties of his future sphere, he took his hereditary seat in the House of Peers at the interesting period in American affairs of 1769.

His entry into political life was upon the pure principles marked out by his illustrious maternal uncle, the Marquis of Rockingham, whose plan was to establish an administration upon the honest original policy of the whig party, free from the dominion of cabal, court influence and intrigue, and especially the well known political mystery of the double cabinet. Lord Fitzwilliam united himself with other sagacious and patriotic statesmen of that period, under this virtuous leader, in opposition to the pernicious policy of Lord North; and he bore an able and efficient part in the body to which he belonged, by the motions he introduced and the zealous support he afforded to the measures of his political friends, thus contributing to the ultimate overthrow of that disastrous administration, on whose downfall depended the pacification which was necessary to complete the independence of America,

To the administration subsequently formed by the Marquis of Rockingham, Earl Fitzwilliam, who, however, did not occupy a place in the cabinet, gave his cordial support. The death of that eminent nobleman in the course of the year succeeding the treaty of peace with the United States, devolved his vast wealth upon his worthy relative, who well inherited all that belonged to that generous and lamented friend of America, excepting the title, which has been suffered to lie dormant, although it could not have rested upon a more kindred representative.

The division which ensued on the death of the prime minister, among the

surviving members of that able but shortlived administration, through the instrumentality attributed, with whatever jutice, to Lord Shelburne, became the subject of severe rebuke and animadversion from Lord Fitzwilliam. "Does the King," says he, among other indignant remarks," need a confessor, and master of ceremonies both in one? Let him choose the Earl of Shelburne. I know no one who can quibble more dextrously, or bow more gracefully." It was the resentment raised by the unexpected elevation of this last mentioned nobleman to the station which had been occupied by Lord Rockingham, connected as the movement was believed to have been with court artifice and interference, which led to the uncongenial and inauspicious combination of all the elements of opposition against the administration of Lord Shelburne, to which the star of the second Pitt owed its early rise and rapid ascendency. Such a coalition of parties, it may be observed, was not without a precedent, under circumstances somewhat parallel, in the confederacy which was formed between the elder Pitt himself, and the Duke of Newcastle, and followed by the most splendid epoch in English annals after the

triumphant co-operation of Godolphin and Marlborough. Under the temporary arrangement referred to, Earl Fitzwilliam supported the celebrated project of Mr. Fox for the direction of East India affairs, and was himself designated to the presidency of the Board of Commissioners, in which the general powers of provincial government over that part of the empire were vested. It was the fate of this certainly remarkable and original measure to yield to the alarm excited in the mind of the sovereign against it as a meditated invasion of the constitutional prerogative. This regal apprehension put an end to Mr. Fox's administration.

It is settled at this day by historical evidence beyond doubt, that all the endeavours and arrangements ofthe whigs to obtain power during the reign of George III. were constantly frustrated and defeated by the watchful purposes of that monarch, imputed to the early lessons of Lord Bute, from whom he imbibed his leading maxims of government, to avail himself always of the first opportunity to liberate himself from what he considered

the thraldom of their councils. This unceasing vigilance extended also, to any incidental attempts to obtain either relief or reform upon whig principles, and led eventually to the resignation, or more pro

perly rejection of Mr. Pitt himself, for disturbing the catholic question, as well as to the early abandonment of his father's principles and his own to acquire his sovereign's favour.

These discomfitures from time to time were alleviated by the hopes entertained from the more liberal influence exercised over the mind of the heir apparent; according in some manner to the proscriptive law of the house of Brunswick, which placed the Prince of Wales in political opposition to his father.

The prospects from this quarter, which were early shadowed by the dissipated tastes of this otherwise promising prince, and the spell which his thirst for pleasure threw over his talents and and accomplishments, became finally extinguished under the despotic influence of the epicurean propensities of the royal voluptu

ary.

In the part taken by Mr. Fox, Lord Fitzwilliam and their distinguished associates, relative to the Regency question, it seems probable that they were influenced by political sympathy and personal predelictions, in regard to the measure of authority they were disposed to claim for the hereditary successor to the sovereignty, as much as by strictly constitutional principles. In the warmth of debate upon this exciting subject, it is stated that Lord Camden and Lord Fitzwilliam mutually retorted upon each other with some piquancy a tendency to republican principles. In the arrangements contemplated by the whig party on this interesting and extraordinary occasion, it was intended to invest Earl Fitzwilliam with the viceroyalty of Ireland. The increasing importance of that high charge was beginning to engage more deeply the patriotic concern of the true friends of both parts of the empire; and Lord Fitzwilliam was indicated to that office, both by his extensive property in the island and the opinion prevailing among the inhabitants of the virtues of his character, evinced in a particular manner by his liberal and benevolent treatment of his own tenantry, between whom and himself he admitted none of that class known by the denomination of middle-men. The effect of such a happy designation, however, was postponed to a period when it was not permitted to be tried under equally favourable auspices. Upon the recovery of the king, a magnificent reception was given by earl Fitzwilliam to the heir apparent at Wentworth House in Yorkshire, with national

games, rural sports, fetes and other accompaniments, in the most abundant and splendid style of ancient English hospitality; of which the habit was continued, it may be observed, in a manner suited to the advancing years of the venerable nobleman, to the last periodical occasion previous to his decease.

The French revolution now came to cast the apple of discord among the friends of liberal principles. Mr. Burke, who had been in the cherished confidence of Lord Rockingham, and his coadjutor in parliamentary and ministerial affairs, was also the political preceptor of Earl Fitzwilliam. The character of that great practical philosopher, splendid as it is acknowledged to have been on the score of intellectual power, has not been sufficiently comprehended by those who have been principally struck with the parts which it was alloted to him to take, at different pe riods, and under distinct and widely marked states and conditions, in the circumstances of his own country and the world. These different postures in which he was thus placed, were undoubtedly rendered more striking and set in stronger relief by those bold and broad generalizations which he was in the habit of employing, and by his custom of dealing with subjects of momentous and absorbing public interest, according to their existing pressure and importance, more than according to their purely speculative, academic and systematic relations. He treated things of this nature in their true character of politics, and not as metaphysics, while he was always master of a manner the most dialectic and philosophical. His grand and powerful abstractions grew out of his profound perception of original, essential principles; and they were invariably attendent upon those great practical interests and pressing concerns of mankind with which it was his fortune, both as a statesman and a legislator, to be pre-eminently conversant. The portentous aspect of the times acting upon a temperament of peculiar acuteness, increased by the falling shadows of age, probably imparted some exaggeration to the objects of his mental apprehension, as it unquestionably added extraordinary energy to his accusing and averting eloquence. But with vast interests in view and great events advancing, his mind was inspired and expanded by the occasion. He looked abroad upon the large expanse of ages; and on a theatre more spacious, with a power more copious and more absolute

than has been granted to any other statesman of our times; he proclaimed himself the organ of the past and the future to all mankind. Hatred of oppression, more than any other single cause, may be regarded as the main-spring, or master-key of Burke's political conduct and principles; and who can deny such a sentiment to be a just principle of thinking and acting in an enlarged and an enlightened code of political ethics. This roused his resistance to the ministerial tyranny of the mother country. It caused him to raise his voice for the relief of the catholics, as well as dissenters, both in England and Ireland. It interested and engaged him in measures for the improvement of the condition of negroes. It kindled his implacable indignation against those who plundered and oppressed the natives of India; and in the main, too, it was the same cause which awoke his unmeasured and unmitigated invective against the sanguinary excesses of the revolutionists in France; because they were not contented with obtaining freedom for themselves, without trampling upon every thing that stood in the way of their tyrannical career. Burke beheld the whole dreadful scene of blood and ruin at its first volcanic outbreak, under the worst and most ferocious aspect of democratic despotism; and denounced the extremest wo of superhuman wrath upon those, who, with professions of liberty and fraternity the most passionate and profuse, were without mercy to their species, in their march of emancipation and empire. Although the period has passed away, pages inscribed by that revolution, in the visions of that raptured seer, are still prophetic; and the enormities of that epoch, which almost filled his breast with their own fury, remain, if not unrelieved, still without recorded parallel.

the

The opinions of Burke on this absorbing subject, it is well known, exercised a predominant influence in Great Britain. At this period Earl Fitzwilliam united with the Duke of Portland, Earl Spencer, Mr. Windham, and a considerable portion of the whig party, in supporting the political measures of the administration; at the head of which the Duke of Portland was placed, while the principal direction of affairs remained in Mr. Pitt; and, with the advice of Mr. Burke, Lord Fitzwilliam accepted the presidency of the council. Although the harsh and unrelenting displeasure of Mr. Burke toward Mr. Fox was manifested in the extraordinary letter communicated to the Duke of Portland and Earl Fitzwilliam, which afterwards found its way to the public through some

Gog

improper channel, the political agreement of Lord Fitzwilliam with Mr. Burke in the unhappy circumstances of excitement, that finally separated the latter from Mr. Fox, did not alter the cordial sentiments of regard which always existed between Mr. Fox and himself. Lord Fitzwilliam conveyed to Mr. Fox the information of Mr. Burke's last illness. It is mentioned that Mr. Fox was so much affected, when Mr. Burke refused to see him, as to burst into tears. Mr. Fox himself, in his last moments, was visited by Lord Fitzwilliam; and, although unable to speak, his countenance is said to have expressed the overflowings of his heart; and his noble friend fainted, and remained for some time insensible after the shock of the parting scene.

In the year succeeding his appointment to the place of president of the council, he was selected for the office of Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. The same situation had been filled by one of his ancestors, a friend of Sir Philip Sydney, with the title of Lord Deputy, for five successive terms, under the reign of Queen Elizabeth. He was descended also, by the maternal side, from a more unfortunately celebrated person, who sustained the same office with a widely different fame-Wentworth, afterwards Earl of Strafford.

Lord Fitzwilliam was recommended to this station by the reputation of his probity and peculiar qualifications, his known sentiments towards the catholics, his personal dispositions, towards the inhabi tants generally, and the corresponding confidence and esteem which those qualities had won for him in the community. These circumstances may undoubt= edly be viewed not merely as among the motives, but as being the principal causes of the appointment, which was regarded of itself, as a proof of sin cerity and conciliation towards Ireland. It was received accordingly, and the arri val of Earl Fitzwilliam in this beneficent capacity, was greeted with universal demonstrations of joy. The Irish parliament, after a cordial address of welcome, unanimously presented the most ample vote of supplies that had ever been granted in that part of the kingdom. A bill was shortly brought in by Mr. Grattan, with the unquestionable approbation of the Lord Lieutenant, for the relief of the cathclies. Individuals who had rendered themselves justly obnoxious to public displeasure by their conduct in office, were removed, and their places supplied by successors of undoubted merit. The most satisfactory results were inferred from