LONDON, OCTOBER 22, 1921. CONTENTS.-No. 184. of Panama City, and that Cartagena is on the other side of the Gulf of Darien. Through these two fortified harbours the Spaniards transacted the business of Peru-the galleons especially. Vera Cruz, on the Gulf of 185 miles east of Mexico City, Mexico, supplied the wants of New Spain. From 1503 the Spanish trade of the Indies was a monopoly of the merchants of Seville, and, on the European side of the Atlantic, "Pisanus Fraxi"-St. Colme's Charm-Roger Gwyllym it was controlled by a few business houses and Richard Lloyd Gwyllym-" Butter goes mad twice in Mexico and Lima. Edward Vernon a year"-Nursery Rime-Capt. Peregrine Bertis-Un NOTES:-"Intriguing" Admiral Vernon, 321-Glasspainters of York: William Peckitt, 323-Passing Stress, 325—The Rev. Joseph Benson and the D.N.B., 327"The Crooked Billet." 328-The Prints and Library of Joseph Nollekens, 328. QUERIES-Char-A-banc-Charles Wither-Anstey's and -Steele and The Spectator '—Translation of Motto identified Arms, 330-Grandeau Family in the Stuart captured Porto Bello, Nov. 20, 1739, Service Alexander Simson, Burgess of Dundee "Fop" a place of arms which had been taken by required-Holland Cheeses-Cheese used in Rituals: direct assault of 460 buccaneers under the Cheese Cures: Cheese poisoning" Making bricks without famous Welshman, Henry Morgan, and straw"-Thistlethwayte Families-John Jones's Jewelsacked, three-quarters of a century before. On March 17, 1740, both Houses of the British Parliament sent an address of congratulation to the King "on the glorious success of Your Majesty's arms in the West Indies, under the command of Vice-Admiral Vernon, by entering the Port and taking the Town of Porto Bello, and demolishing and levelling all the forts and castles belonging thereto, with six men-of-war only." This phrase of with six men-of-war only " was carried by the Opposition in the Commons to emphasize the contrast between Vernon and that Admiral Hozier who had hesitated to attack the place with 20 ships of war in 1726. Cartagena was blockaded March 9, 1741, but the attack upon the forts miscarried and failed and the expedition for its destruction withdrew late in the month following. lery'--Samuel Mullen, Poet, 331-Vida's Game of Chess' Surnames with Double Letters, 332. II. and Barbara Villiers, 337-Martin-Carisbrooke Castle NOTES ON BOOKS - The Latin Orient Journal of the Quarterly. Notices to Correspondents. 66 Notes. Sir J. K. Laughton in the 'D.N.B.' INTRIGUING" ADMIRAL EDWARD mentions that the Cartagena failure has VERNON. 66 been very commonly spoken of as navelas Vernon's and, still more commonly, IN notes which have recently been pub- to the ill-feeling between Vernon and lished in Masonic organs on both sides of Brigadier-General Wentworth, who was in the Atlantic regarding some of the elder command of the military forces; and espelodges of the Freemasons in Stepney cially to "Vernon's violent temper and (when that ancient great parish was de savage tongue." It is added :-"This is facto the Port of London and the nursery the view which has been popularized by of English seamen") references were made Smollett; but, in point of fact, Smollett, to the traditions that the once-famous though on board one of the ships (in a very Admiral Edward Vernon, of Porto Bello humble capacity), was not in a position to and Cartagena, was more or less know anything beyond what he could actutimately associated with the craft and ally see on the rare occasions when he was mistery" long before the great composing permitted to be on the poop. Of the relaunion of the several English fractions of tions of Vernon and Wentworth, of their the brotherhood. letters or conversations, he was, and must have been, altogether ignorant. The letters show that there was no quarrel before the ill-judged attack on San Lazaro (the citadel of Cartegena); and that though Vernon did 66 in Readers may be reminded that Fuerto Bello ("the beautiful harbour") is now a seaport of Colombia on the north coast of the Isthmus of Panama, 40 miles N.N.W. repeatedly urge Wentworth to exertion of British naval history which followed the and pointed out the danger of delay, Peace of Utrecht, Captain Vernon served it was always in language of scrupu- as representative in Parliament for Ipswich, lous courtesy." Nevertheless, it is too near which he possessed considerable landed large an order to dismiss all rumours property. of the lower decks or the subsequent gossip in London Port (a place especially concerned not only as furnishing recruits of both arms, but also the fearful junk and the poisonous medicinal drugs and alcoholics). It suffices to know that the remonstrances of the Admiral, civil or otherwise, were overruled by the Council of War composed of land officers only; and it was determined to relinquish the enterprise. Still remonstrating, Vernon saw the army re-embarking, and so the fleet returned to Jamaica. The Ministry at home took courage to rid themselves of responsibility for the deep popular disappointment (for "another Porto Bello" had been too confidently anticipated, and, indeed, had been partially celebrated). Both Admiral and General were recalled home from the Jamaica headquarters, and in December of the same year Vernon took passage for England and was soon after followed by Wentworth and his surviving, half-trained, ill-disciplined and ill-fed levies of the Port. Vernon remained unemployed until the year 1745 (although the sop of Vice-Admiralty of the Red was thrown at him). Then suddenly, in consequence of the imminent invasion of Scotland in favour of the Pretender, he was promoted to be Admiral of the White, and appointed to command the fleet ordered to be equipped for the North Sea. This period of his command, it is agreed by the textbooks of the Foundation and other best schools a hundred years ago, was the most interesting of his whole life; and no man could have been more successful in that particular service to which the necessities of his country called him." The boys of 1820-1830 were told, even in the common schools of the Church and Dissent in the Port of London, that the prudent disposition of Admiral Vernon's cruisers totally prevented the introduction of any rebel or enemy succour, 66 and the ferment as well as fear of that part of the Nation furthest removed from the scene of action was considerably allayed by the firm confidence of all ranks of people placed in the circumspection and diligence of this very popular Commander. The sorry sequel is thus explained in the accepted textbooks of a century ago and even a generation later. During a considerable part of the uninteresting thirty years Being a man of strong natural abilities, and possessed of a fluent and strong, though coarse and sometimes improper, mode of delivering his sentiments, he was considered by Ministers least as one of their most disagreeable antagonists. to whom he was constantly in Opposition—at for them to seize, with avidity, the earliest Being politicians, it was natural, therefore, opportunity of removing him, by any means, from their immediate presence. He had a natural impetuosity in argument. not to be restrained by prudence, so that he was not infrequently betrayed into assertions men of greater deliberation would have hesitated to make. In one of those paroxysms of oratory, after arraigning most bitterly the torpid measures of Administration, he proceeded, in very strong terms, to insist on the facility with which the most valuable and formidable of the Spanish possessions in the West Indies might be reduced under the dominion of Britain. In particular, hə asserted, not only that the town of Porto Bello might be reduced by a force not exceeding six ready to hazard his life and reputation t ships of the Line, but that he himself was actually undertaking such an enterprise-which h would answer with both should terminate with success. With the hope that Vernon might disgrace himself and his Party in Opposition, the Administration instantly closed with this hasty and perhaps not quite serious opinion. On July 9, 1739, Vernon was advanced to the rank of Vice-Admiral of the Blue and appointed Commander-in-Chief of all His Majesty's ships in the West Indies. To the astonishment of the Administration the conquest of Porto Bello was effected, and the loss sustained did not exceed twenty men in killed and wounded-of which three were killed and five wounded on board Vernon's own ship, the Burford, seventy guns. The students' annalists say the news of this success was received in England with a degree of ecstasy scarcely to be described Mothers even taught their children to lisp out the name of Vernon (as their fathers doubtless stuttered it and mispronounced it in suddenly re-named Inns and Taverns !) as a hero whee deeds stood far beyond all competition ; thus by one single action Vernon acquired a universal popularity which other men, not fortunate, have in vain offered the less dazzling. but not less valuable action of a long and wellspent life, without being able to obtain. Entick, the Stepney Curate-in-Charge (notable in other of his books for the intimate knowledge he reveals of the operations of * * : 66 . various sorts of Freemasons in the London 1776 Ae. 85. Anna quoque uxor ejus ob. Port of the eighteenth century), says in his Nov. 22 1787 Ae. 97." Hargrove, in his Naval History' that "if the sole command History of York,' 1818, vol. ii., p. 70, states at Cartagena had been in the hands of that Peckitt was born in April, 1731, at Admiral Vernon the whole of the Spanish Husthwaite," and Davies, Walks Through possessions in the West Indies must have York,' 1880, p. 176, adds the additional been conquered by the British forces.' information, which he imputes to Hargrove, None deny now that Entick's opinion was that he was the son of a respectable that of the Port of London, or that most husbandman 66 and was brought up to be probably the opinion was that of the nation a carver and gilder." The name of the at large. Nor does it appear that Vernon's glass-painter, however, does not occur in the popularity suffered any real diminution registers of the parish of Husthwaite, though through the reverses of fortune he ex- the old and respected Yorkshire family perienced whilst acting in "cooperation of Peckitt long resident there claim him with General Wentworth. as a relation. The mistake has evidently occurred through confusing the two William Admiral Edward Vernon, Admiral of the Peckitts, father and son, and through misWhite, continued in command of the North reading an entry, probably itself defecSea fleet till Jan. 1, 1746. Then, in conse- tive, in the registers of St. Helen's Church, quence of certain disputes with the Board Stonegate, recording the birth of the glassof Admiralty, he was ordered by the Lords painter's daughter Charlotte. The entry is Commissioners to strike his flag. This he as follows:accordingly did and he was never afterwards employed in His Majesty's service. Submitting to his compulsory retirement with the greatest impatience, he published some arrogant and unaccommodating pamphlets in vindicating his character; and in one of these he gave offence to King George, and by His Majesty's special command wife. he was actually struck off the list of Admirals Although when we first hear of him, in on April 11, 1746, and never restored. He 1752, Peckitt was living with his father died suddenly at his seat at Nacton, in "next door to the Sandhill in Colliergate,' Suffolk, on Oct. 30, 1757, in the seventy- he was closely connected all his life with the third year of his age, and his memory parish of St. Martin-cum-Gregory, Micklegate. Two of his daughters were buried in the church in 1765 and 1790 respectively, as also later were he himself, his wife and granddaughter. In 1752, when he was twentyPeckitt a freeman without payment, he one years of age, the Corporation made evidently not being entitled to the freedom by patrimony or apprenticeship. The entry in the Freemen's Roll (Surtees Soc.) reads:1752. William Peckitt, glass-painter and stainer by order gratis, remained undimmed in the Port of London until obscured by the greater glory of Trafalgar and of another naval hero not guiltless of indiscretions; and within living recollection taverns and pleasuregardens, and even Scottish townships, were still named in his honour or in testimony of his naval successes and mischances. GLASS-PAINTERS OF YORK. Mc. Nov. 19, 1770. Charlotte 3rd daughter and 3rd child of William Peckitt, glass-stainer [? portion missing from entry or omitted in copying, son of William Peckitt, glove-maker "] late of Husthwaite, near Easingwold, and Ann Hunt his wife who abode in Cumberland Row alias New Street. Mother's name, Mary, eldest of St. Cuthbert's parish by Mary Whitely his daughter of Charles Mitley, carver and gilder this being the earliest example the writer (12 S. viii. 127, 323, 364, 406, 442, 485; has come across of a glass-painter describing ix. 21, 61, 103, 163, 204, 245, 268.) WILLIAM PECKITT. himself with the additional title of "stainer." Peckitt is also thus described in the entry in the St. Helen's Church registers referred to above, in his will, in the inscription on the window to his memory, and on the tablet recording the death of his wife. The Corporation waived the right of the usual fine demanded in the case of one taking up his freedom by purchase, in consequence of the artist having painted and In the same year in which Peckitt became free of the city we find him advertising as follows: presented them with a panel of glass as a caust and bath, discovered at Hovingham, specimen of his skill, representing Justice which was drawn by him and engraved in a triumphal car and the arms of the city, by Vertue, and published in 1745 with a which they graciously accepted "for the description by Drake, the Drake, the author of encouragement of the arts and sciences," the Eboracum.' In the same year and which piece is now in the old Council Charles Mitley and William Carr, builder, 'Chamber in the Guildhall. of York, obtained a building lease of the site of the old Davy Hall, which had recently been pulled down, and they erected on part of it the row of five houses in New Street then called Cumberland Row, which ultimately came into the possession of Mitley's son-in-law, Peckitt the glassCarr married Mitley's painter. William sister Diana in 1745. He died in 1757, when the property no doubt passed to his brotherin-law and partner. Mitley died the following year and Peckitt evidently became possessed of it through his marriage with Mitley's daughter in 1763. Half of the Davy Hall site fronting Davygate was taken as a burial-ground for St. Helen's parish, and there Peckitt's father and mother were buried. On the other half was erected a house in which Peckitt lived and which, according to Hargrove, he built himself. William Peckitt, son of William Peckitt the noted glove-maker next door to the Sandhill in Colliergate, York, thinks proper to advertise all gentlemen, clergymen, and others that by many experiments he has found out the art of painting or staining of glass in all kinds of colours and all sorts of figures, as Scripture pieces for church windows, arms in heraldry, &c., in the neatest and liveliest manner, specimens of which may be seen at the house aforesaid. He likewise repairs old broken painted windows in churches or in gentlemen's houses and will wait upon any person in town or country that desires it. Advt. York (? Courant or Chronicle), July 14, 1752. The above statement by Peckitt himself, that he had found out the art by experiments, which was corroborated after his death by his daughter Harriot in a letter in The Gentleman's Magazine for May, 1817, p. 391, who there stated that he was not instructed by anyone and that he had "found out the secret by his own study and practice," must be accepted. It is nevertheless the more difficult to believe seeing that he produced the above-mentioned piece of work, alike excellent in drawing and technique, at the early age of twenty-one. Some time subsequent to the year 1752 Anne died in 1765 in the first year of her Peckitt took up his residence in Micklegate, age, and Charlotte in 1790, aged 20. A in the parish of St. Martin-cum-Gregory, memorial window painted by Peckitt to where the Gyles family had lived for many commemorate the above two daughters years, and in 1763 he married, in St. Michael- is in St. Martin-cum-Gregory Church and le-Belfrey Church, Mary Mitley, daughter of represents a figure of Hope. Beneath is Charles Mitley. The entry in the Church the inscription :registers is as follows: 66 1763. William Peckitt, par. St. Mart. Micklegate, glass-painter and stainer, Mary Mitley, this par. by lic. Apr. 3 by Dudley Rockett. Witnesses Ann Ward, Joh. Blansherd. Mrs. Peckitt's father, Charles Mitley, who had died five years prior to her marriage with Peckitt, had been a man of many parts. In the St. Helen's Church registers previously quoted, he was described as a carver and gilder. He was also a statuary and carved the figure of George II., now over the entrance to the Guildhall, which was placed there in 1786, but was carved in 1739 and then placed on the cross in Thursday Market. Mitley's name also occurs as the draughtsman of a plan of a Roman hypo Peckitt had four daughters, Mary, Anne, Charlotte and Harriot. Mary, probably the eldest, afterwards married Mr. John Rowntree, an attorney. The death of their daughter Mary in 1846, aged 42, is recorded on the same tablet as that which records the death of her grandmother, Mrs. Peckitt, and which is to be seen in St. Martin-cumGregory Church. Hujus ecclesiae, subter media semita, jacent mortalia Annae filiae Gul. Peckitt, obiit As 30 1765 aetatis anno suae primo et Charlottar filiae ejus obiit Ap. 14, 1790. in anno vicesimo aetatis suae. Peckitt, Ebor. 1792. The incised tombstone to the child Anne can be seen on the floor of the chancel. Harriot was born Oct. 12, 1776, and died in 1866. Peckitt evidently moved from Micklegate when he built the Davygate house. in which he lived till 1791, for Feb. 4 of that year he advertised the house in The York Chronicle "to be let and entered on at May Day next." A full description of the house as it then was appeared in the above advertisement. He next moved to the house sense in the mid-nineteenth century Angel I feign'd her won-the mind finite Too quick despairer, wherefore wilt thou go? Soon will the high Midsummer pomp come on. Perhaps, "hovering accent.” on Friars Walls, where between four and which Is it forcing to a rhyme to write-Bridges's Within the peach-clad walls that old outlaw In the oak chair old Ursel sat upright. Judge, when they open the judgment-roll Pure and upright in his integrity. Queen Guenevere, uncertain as sunshine stands in what was once part of the artist's Nor so in Swinburne's 'Les Noyades ' :- (To be continued.) PASSING STRESS. to (i. 113) : To see the war-horse in the red torch-light. Ib. ii. 630: Turning the sunny day to murk midnight. *In that poet Patmore's Victories of Love (1863), xiii., there is the exceptional And upset home for your sole whim." Ib. ii. 16: "Darken or lighten towards my únseen face." And thus Keble, All Saints' Day' : God's unseen armies hovering round." It may be flight were no such unwise mean." And Mangan's The Warning Voice': "Your faith and worth Will be History soon, And Morris's Jason' (i. 288): "Holding within her hand an unstrung bow." And ii. 121 :— "And iron-hilted sword, and uncouth weed." But so the other poets, to our day, anxious for the meaning of the preposition; as Bridges's 'Prometheus'; impure, outrun : "If any here there be whose impure hands." "Lest their accomplishments should outrun mine." And Rupert Brooke's 'Great Lover' :— "a star That outshone all the suns of all men's days." |