Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 02.djvu/199

Ashworth ;’ for his congregation, a book of ‘Tunes;’ and Funeral Sermons for Dr. Isaac Watts 1749, Rev. James Floyd 1759, and Rev. S. Clark, his coadjutor, 1770.

[Funeral Sermon, by Rev. Samuel Palmer, 1775; Monthly Repository, 1813, 1822; Prietley's Autobiography, incorporated in Rutt's Memoirs and Correspondence of Priestley, 1831.]  ASHWORTH, CHARLES (d. 1832), major-general, was appointed ensign in the 68th foot in 1798; lieutenant in 1799; captain 55th foot in 1801; major 6th West India regiment in 1808; major 62nd foot in 1808; a lieutenant-colonel with the Portuguese army in 1810; and served as brigadier-general at the battles of Vittoria, Pyrenees, Nivelle, Nive, and St. Pierre, where he was badly wounded. He took part in the combat of Buenza and succeeding engagements, for which he was honoured with a cross, and allowed, 14 Nov. 1814, to accept the order of the Tower and Sword from the Prince Regent of Portugal. He attained the rank of colonel in 1814, and major-general in 1825; was nominated a companion of the Bath in 1815; a knight commander on the occasion of the coronation of William IV in September 1831; and died at Hall Place, St. John's Wood, on 13 Aug. 1832.

[Gentleman's Mag, vol. cii. part ii. p. 187; Napier's History of the Peninsular War, book xxiii. vol. vi. p. 396.]  ASHWORTH, HENRY (1785–1811), lieutenant in the navy, was born in London, December 1785. In November 1799 he entered on board the 38-gun frigate Hussar, under the immediate patronage of the first lieutenant, and four years later was serving as midshipman on board the same ship when she was lost on the Saintes, near Brest, on 8 Feb. 1804. Whilst prisoner of war, Mr. Ashworth made several remarkable attempts to recover his freedom; and at last, having escaped from Bitche in December 1808, he succeeded in passing through Germany to Trieste, where he got on board the English frigate L'Unité. In the October following he was promoted to be a lieutenant, and was serving in that rank in the Centaur of 74 guns, on the coast of Spain, when the French took Tarragona, on 28 June 1811, and drove a number of the panic-stricken inhabitants, literally, into the sea. Lieutenant Ashworth had command of one of the boats sent to rescue these drowning wretches, and, whilst so employed, received a wound, of which he died a month later, at Minorca, 25 July 1811.

[His very curious evasions and adventures as a midshipman in company with a master's mate named O'Brien, are recounted at very full length in the Naval Chronicle, vols. xxviii.-xxxi., and xxxiii., and must be considered as, to a great extent, the original of the well-known episode in 'Peter Simple.']  ASHWORTH, HENRY (1794–1880), friend of Cobden and vigorous supporter of the Anti-Corn Law League, was born at Birtwistle, near Bolton, Lancashire, on 4 Sept. 1794, and coming of quaker parentage was in due course sent to Ackworth school. After leaving that famous academy of the Friends he, in partnership with his brother Edmund, managed their extensive mills at Turton, where they distinguished themselves by their careful provision for the well-being of those whom they employed, and for whose benefit they established excellent schools, library, and reading room. Ashworth was a staunch nonconformist, and resolutely refused to pay church rates. He was a founder of the Anti-Corn Law League, and was one of its warmest supporters both by money and personal influence and exertion. He had made Cobden's acquaintance in 1837, and was ever after his firm friend. In 1840 he was one of a deputation that waited upon Lord Melbourne to urge the repeal of the corn laws. 'You know,' said the premier, 'that to be impracticable.' Sir Robert Peel was equally unpleasant. In answer to Mr. Ashworth's plea that the import of food should not be restricted in order to uphold rents. Sir James Graham called out, 'Why, you are a leveller!' and asked whether he was to infer that the labouring classes had some claim to the landlords' estates. The prosperous manufacturer was naturally somewhat startled at this unexpected phrase, and protested against its injustice. In dismissing the deputation Sir James told them that if the corn laws were repealed great disasters would fall upon the country, the land would go out of cultivation, church and state could not be upheld, the national institutions would be reduced to their elements, and the houses of the leaguers would be pulled about their ears by the people they were trying to excite. In 1843, in company with Bright and Cobden, he visited Durham, Northumberland, Cumberland, and East Lothian, to obtain information as to the position of agriculture, and they were sometimes mentioned as the A B C of the league gone to study farming. Mr. John Bright, speaking at the opening banquet at the Manchester Town Hall in 1877, described a visit in company with Ashworth and others to the ruins of Tantallon Castle: 'As we walked amongst those