Page:A new and general biographical dictionary; containing an historical and critical account of the lives and writings of the most eminent persons in every nation v1.djvu/294

 A N S O N. nifterre a powerful fleet, bound from France to the E aft and Weft Indies; and. by h'3 valour and conduit again enrich- ed himfelf and his officers, and ftrengthened the Britifh navy, by taking fix men of war and four Eaft Indiarnen, not one of them efcapintr. The French admiral M. Jonquiere, on pre- knting his fword to the conqueror, faid. " Monfieur, vous " av.ez vaincu 1'lnvincible, & la Gloire vous fuit," pointing to the two {hips fo named. King George II. for his fignal Cervices, rewarded him with a peerage, by the title of loid Anfon, baron of Soberton in Hants. In the fame year he was appointed vice admiral of the red; and on the death of Sir John Norris, vice admiral of England. In 1748, he was appointed admiral of the blue, and commanded the fquadron that convoyed the late king to and from Holland ; and ever after conftantly attend- ed his majcfiy in his foreign expeditions. In 1751^ he was appointed firfl lord of the admiralty, in which ftacioa he con- tinued, with a very, (hort interval, till his death. In 1758, being then admiral of the white, having hoifted his flag on board the Royal .George of one hundred gun?, he failed from Spithead on *he ili of June, with a formidable fleet, Sir Edward Hawke commanding under him ; and by cruizing continually before B.eit, he covered the .defcents that were made that fummer at St. Maloe's, and Cherburg. After this he was appointed admiral and commander in chief of his rr.a;j{ly's fleets. The laft fervice he performed was convoying to England our prefent queen Charlotte. He bad been for fame time in a languifhing ftate of health, but died fuddeniy juft after having been walking in his garden, at his feat at Moor Park, in Hertfordshire, June 6, 1762. He mar- ried the eltieft daughter of the late earl Hardwicke, who died before him without iflue. As to his natural difpofition, he was calm, cool, and fleady : but it is re-ported, that our honeft undefigning fe$- man was frequently a dupe at play : and it was wittily ob- ferved of him, that he had been round the world, but never in it. No penemance ever met with a more favourable re- ception than "Lord Anfon's Voyage round the World:" four large impreffions were fold off in a twelvemonth ; it has been tranflated into moft of the European languages, and ftill fupports its reputation. It was compofed under his lordfhip's own infpelion, and from the materials which he furnifhed, by Mr. Benjamin Robins, who defigned, as will appear under his article, to have favoured the world with a fecond Part of it. ANTONIANO