Page:A Compendium of Irish Biography.djvu/176

DIL  terms the schemes of the Fenian organization, thereby proving how highly he valued the liberty of his own opinions, as compared with transient popularity. The following extract from a speech of his delivered but two years before his death shows that his early opinions remained unchanged: "What has been the essence of Irish patriotism for the last 200 or 300 years? What have our great men been struggling for under various forms—whatever the immediate object might be—but that the rule of the stranger should cease on those shores—that his bigotry should no longer insult our convictions, and that his greed should no longer devour our substance. In front of all our institutions—civil, military, and ecclesiastical—that shameful inscription might still be read, 'This land belongs to England.' To erase this foul legend has been the object of the efforts of every genuine patriot from Swift to O'Connell." He died after a short illness, at Druid Lodge, Killiney, 15th September 1866, aged about 52, and was interred at Glasnevin. The Gentleman's Magazine says of him: "Although he was not specially successful as a speaker, his calm and earnest manner, and the fulness of knowledge which he brought to bear on the subject, always secured him a hearing when he felt called upon to address the House… He had a mind thoroughly free from illiberality of any kind."  Dillon, Peter, an Irishman, born about 1785. He entered the navy, served as Second-Lieutenant of H.M.S. Hunter, and gained a considerable knowledge of the South Sea Islands. He revisited them in 1826 as captain of a merchantman. On a voyage from Valparaiso to New Zealand, he touched at Tikopia, one of the Queen Charlotte group, where he was led to suspect, from information received, that LaPerouse, whose fate was at that time unknown, had been wrecked on a neighbouring island. Prosecuting his inquiries in the following year, under the auspices of the East Indian Government, which placed a vessel at his disposal for the purpose, he succeeded in obtaining from the natives not only indubitable evidence of the wreck of two French vessels many years before at Vanikoro, but also a number of articles belonging to them. He reached Paris in 1828, and the articles were recognized as having belonged to La Perouse's ill-fated expedition. Charles X. conferred upon Captain Dillon the star of the Legion of Honour, and an annual pension of 4,000f. He published in 1829 a diffuse account of his travels, in 2 vols., which was translated into French. Captain Dillon died 9th February 1847.  Dobbs, Arthur, Governor of North Carolina, was born 2nd April 1689, at Girvan in Scotland, where his parents were for a short time refugees during disturbances in Ireland. He was for many years a member of the Irish Parliament for Carrickfergus, and in 1729 had published in Dublin an important work (reprinted by Alexander Thom in 1861), entitled. An Essay on the Trade and Improvement of Ireland. In 1730 he was appointed Surveyor-General of Ireland. By his advice, in May 1741, two vessels sailed to discover a north-west passage to India, and during their voyage named a point of land on the north-west of Hudson's Bay, Cape Dobbs. He was the author of An Account of the Countries adjoining to the Hudson's Bay, London, 1748. In January 1753, he was appointed Governor of North Carolina. He was a man of letters and of liberal views, and as a politician adopted humane and conciliatory measures towards the Indian tribes. Drake says: "His administration was a continued contest with the legislature on important matters, displaying on his part an ardent zeal for royal prerogative, and an indomitable resistance on the part of the colonists." He died at Town Creek, North Carolina, 28th March 1765, aged about 75. Additional particulars relating to him will be found in Notes and Queries, 3rd Series.  Dobbs, Francis, a noted member of the Irish Parliament, who sat for Charlemont from January 1798 to the Union, was born, probably in the north of Ireland, 27th April 1750. He was called to the Bar in 1773, and first came prominently before the public as representative from a northern Volunteer corps to the Dungannon Convention, 15th February 1782. Barrington says: "His intellect was of an extraordinary description; he seemed to possess two distinct minds—the one adapted to the duties of his profession; the other, diverging from its natural centre, led him through wilds and ways rarely frequented by the human understanding—entangled him in a maze of contemplative deduction from revelation to futurity." He devoted much time to the exposition of the prophetical portions of Scripture, and repeatedly predicted the advent of the millenium. He published a Letter to Lord North (Dub. 1780), a Universal History in several volumes, and many tracts. In 1798 he had to do with bringing about the arrangement between the State-prisoners and the Government (detailed in the notice of the elder Emmet). In an extravagant speech against 152