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  in our people had been answerabie to their willing minds and ready resolutions not one of the galleons, unless their sides were impenetrable, had escaped us.' It was, perhaps, not only the want of knowledge but the imperfections of the guns, of the powder and of the shot, that rendered it possible for ships to fire at each other all day without any decided result. On this occasion, however, some damage was done, and towards evening the enemy towed their ships off, and were not pursued. Captain Shilling was mortally wounded, and died on 6 Jan. 1620-1; Captain Blyth succeeded to the command, but the change made no difference to Baffin, who continued master of the London, and the fleet presently returned to Surat. In the following year the English in India agreed to assist the Shah of Persia in driving the Portuguese out of Ormuz, a place which, in former ages, had been the emporium of the East, the wonder and admiration of the world; and though in the hands of the Portuguese, and since the opening of the route round the Cape of Good Hope, its wealth and importance had declined, it was still extremely rich. The Shah had long regarded the Portuguese possession with jealousy, and had coveted the accumulated treasures, greater in repute than in fact, and now hoped, with the help of the English, to achieve his desire. The attack began with the reduction of Kishm, an adjacent island, on which Ormuz was largely dependent for water; and here, on 23 Jan. 1621-2, Baffin, whilst taking the angles of the castle wall, in order to measure its height and distance, received his death-wound. According to the account given by Purchas, 'he received a shot from the castle into his belly, wherewith he gave three leaps, and died immediately.' His death made little difference to the result of the siege; Kishm surrendered on 1 Feb., and Ormuz also, after a stout defence, on 23 April 1622. Baffin appears to have left no surviving children; but his widow preferred a claim for some money which she asserted belonged to her husband, in compensation for which she eventually received 500l. She is described as then, in 1628, a woman advanced in years and deaf, and as having married again.

Amongst early navigators Baffin takes a high place as one of the first who endeavoured to determine longitude at sea by astronomical observations. In his first recorded voyage to Greenland (8 July 1612)he describes his attempt to determine the longitude by observing the time of the moon's culmination: and in his voyage to Hudson's Bay (21 June 1615) he has recorded another attempt by the lunar distance of the sun. The measurements were of necessity too rude to give results even approximately correct, but that was the fault of the instruments; and though the observation led to no immediate improvement, the date is noteworthy as that of the first lunar observation taken at sea.



BAGARD, or BAGGARD, THOMAS (d. 1544), civilian, was nominated in 1525 by Cardinal Wolsey one of the first eighteen canons of his college at Oxford, which afterwards became Christ Church. On 7 Oct. 1528 he was admitted to the college of advocates in London. Early in 1532 he became chancellor of the diocese of Worcester through the intercession of Edmund Bonner with Thomas Cromwell. Under date 24 Jan. 1531-2, Bonner asked Cromwell to 'continue good master to Dr. Bagard,' and two letters from Bagard to Cromwell, thanking him for granting him the appointment at Worcester, are extant at the Record Office. Bagard appears to have at first moderately supported Cromwell's ecclesiastical reforms, and, although he disagreed with him in many points of doctrine, to have been on good terms with Hugh Latimer, both before and after he became bishop of Worcester in 1535. In 1534 Cromwell suspected Bagard of disloyalty to the cause of the Reformation, and Bagard replied to the accusation in a long letter asserting his anxiety 'to tender the king's pleasure.' In 1541 he became one of the first canons of Worcester endowed from the confiscated property of the disestablished Worcester priory. Bagard died in 1544.



BAGE, ROBERT (1728–1801), novelist, was born at Barley, in the parish of St. Alkmonds, Derby, on 29 Feb. 1728. He was educated at a common school at Derby. At the age of seven he was a proficient in Latin, and his talents were generally admired. On leaving school he was trained to his father's business of paper-making, but did not cease to study. At the age of twenty-three Bage contracted a happy marriage, and with the aid of his wife's dowry he was enabled to establish a paper manufactory at Elford,