Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 03.djvu/383

Basset  If any discord twixt my friends arise Within the borough of belov'd St. Ives, It is desirèd this my cup of love To euerie one a peace-maker may prove. Then am I blest to have given a legacie, So like my harte, unto posteritie. His portrait, a fine example of Vandyck, is preserved at Tehidy. He appears to have been a jovial sportsman, much addicted to hawking and cock-fighting. He married in 1620 Ann, daughter of Sir Jonathan Trelawny of Trelawne, and, when the stress of the civil war in 1643 passed into Cornwall, was busily engaged in the western part of Cornwall in raising money and drilling forces for the king. Letters of his to his wife ‘at her Tehidy’ are preserved, recording the royalist victories of Stamford Hill near Stratton, and of Braddock Down near Lostwithiel, at the latter of which (or at any rate very shortly after the fight) he, with most of the Cornish gentry, was present, and was knighted on the field. He records in another letter to his wife that after the battle ‘the king, in the hearing of thousands, as soon as he saw me in the morning, cryed to mee “Deare Mr. Sheriffe, I leave Cornwall to you safe and sound”’ (, Traditions and Recollections, i. 17–20). He was sheriff of the county, 1642–4, and there is a complaint against him in the Star Chamber, 18 May 1625 (Brit. Mus. Add. MS. 12496). Sir Francis died 19 Sept. 1645. The full vengeance of Cromwell fell upon his son John, though the latter had never taken up arms; and, compelled to compound for his estates, he had to sell St. Michael's Mount in 1660 to a member of the St. Aubyn family, in whose possession it has ever since remained. Sir Francis's second son, Francis, was a puritan, residing at Taunton, and in 1661 was accused of a conspiracy against Charles II, of which charge, however, he was honourably acquitted on a letter which he was alleged to have written being proved a forgery (cf., Life of Joseph Alleine (1861), p. 194).

[The authorities cited above.]  BASSET, FRANCIS, of Tehidy and  of Stratton (1757–1835), patriot, political writer, and patron of science, literature, and art, was son of Francis Basset, M.P. for Penryn from 1766 to 1769 (, iii. 450, 455, and Gent. Mag., 1769, xxxix. 558), and Margaret St. Aubyn, his wife. He was born at Walcot in Oxfordshire 9 Aug. 1757, and was educated at Harrow, Eton, and King's College, Cambridge, where he took his M.A. degree when twenty-nine years of age. Dr. Bathurst, afterwards bishop of Norwich, acted a tone time as his private tutor (Memoirs of Dr. Bathurst, 1837, i. 20). A tour on the continent, made with the Rev. William Sandys, son of a former steward of the family, and who had been specially trained for the purpose, completed his education, and he at once started in public life with every advantage that talents, education, and position could confer. Amongst his various political treatises are ‘Thoughts on Equal Representation,’ 1783; ‘Observations on a Treaty between England and France,’ 1787; ‘The Theory and Practice of the French Constitution,’ 1794; and ‘The Crimes of Democracy,’ 1798. His agricultural tracts included ‘Experiments in Agriculture,’ 1794; ‘A Fat Ox,’ 1799; ‘Crops and Prices,’ 1800; ‘Crops in Cornwall,’ 1801; and ‘Mildew,’ 1805; most of which appeared in Young's ‘Annals of Agriculture.’ He was chosen recorder of Penryn in 1778, and in 1779 he was created a baronet, and was M.P. for Penryn 1780–96. On his entrance into political life he joined Lord North's party, and was hurried into the coalition. The outbreak of the French revolution considerably modified his political views, and some angry correspondence in 1783 took place between him and the Duke of Portland (Brit. Mus. Add. MS. 21553, art. 34) in consequence of one of Sir Francis's protégés having been superseded as warden of the Stannaries. Mrs. Delany records some of his electioneering experiences in June and October 1784. In June 1782, though the two men were personally unknown to each other, he moved an address for ‘a lasting provision’ to be made for Admiral Rodney (Life and Correspondence of Lord Rodney, ii. 312, 335), but, at the instigation of the government, ultimately withdrew it. Rodney, however, wrote to him a very handsome letter of thanks on 1 Oct. 1782. Sir Francis opposed the peace with America with great energy, and in the same year seconded the address to the king's speech, declaring his confidence in the administration. In 1779, when the combined French and Spanish fleets threatened Plymouth, Sir Francis Basset marched into that town a large body of the Cornish miners' militia, and, with their aid, rapidly threw up additional earthwork batteries for the defence of the port; he also constructed about the same time some defences for the little harbour of Portreath on the north coast of Cornwall. His patriotic services on this occasion gained him his first title—his baronetcy, dated 24 Nov. 1779. On 17 June 1796 Pitt created him Baron de Dunstanville, and Baron Basset