Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 04.djvu/402

 (Life of Howe, p. 26). He signed the invitation of the army to the members of the Rump to return to their seats, and was appointed both a member of the council of state and one of the committee who nominated to all offices (May 1659). In the struggle between the army and the Rump he took part with the former, and was cashiered for signing the army petition of 6 Oct. He was naturally chosen one of the committee of safety established by the army (26 Oct. 1659), but could not prevent his own regiment, when sent to blockade Portsmouth, from deserting in large numbers to the partisans of the parliament. Whitelocke informs us that Berry was one of the persons whose influence prevented Fleetwood from accepting the proposal to recall Charles II and anticipate Monk (22 Dec. 1659., p. 691). On the reassembling of the remains of the Long parliament he was ordered to leave London (10 Jan. 1660), and refusing to give an engagement to live peaceably was imprisoned by the council of state. 'Afterwards,' says Baxter, 'he being one of the four whom General Monk had the worst thoughts of, was closely confined in Scarborough Castle.' On his wife's petition in April 1663, the severity of his imprisonment was relaxed, but he seems to have continued a prisoner for the rest of his life. From a letter which he wrote to Sir Jordan Crossland, under whose charge he was, it appears that he was refused release without an acknowledgment of guilt, which he steadfastly refused to give (Cal. S. P. Dom. 25 Oct. 1667). But according to Baxter, 'being released he became a gardener, and lived in a safer state than in all his greatness.' He has been identified with Lieutenant-colonel Berry who was second in command at Newton Butler in 1689, and died 9 May 1691, but this is uncertain ( Remembrance of Rev. C. Berry, 1877).



BERRY, JOHN (1635–1690), admiral, of a family long settled near Ilfracombe, was the second son of a clergyman, vicar of Knoweston in Devonshire, who, having lost his living and his means of livelihood in the civil wars, died in 1652, leaving a large family almost entirely destitute. John, as well as his elder brother, went to sea in the merchant service, and in 1663, entering into the navy, was appointed boatswain of the Swallow ketch in the West Indies. Some little time after he was advanced to be lieutenant of the Swallow, and having had the good fortune to assist in capturing a pirate of superior force, was appointed to the command, her captain being promoted to the command of the Constant Warwick, 17 Sept. 1666. On arriving in England he was appointed to the Little Mary, and in the course of 1666 to the Guinea. In 1637 he was appointed to command the hired ship Coronation, of 66 guns, in which he was sent out to the West Indies. The presence of a considerable force of French and Dutch was giving much uneasiness, and the governor of Barbadoes, having taken up eight large merchant ships, which he equipped as men-of-war, gave the command of the squadron to Captain Berry, who, in an engagement with the enemy off Nevis, drove them back under the guns of St. Kitt's, burnt one of their number in the roadstead by means of a fireship, and forced the rest to scatter and fly. In 1668 he commanded the Pearl, which in June 1669 was sent to the Mediterranean with Sir Thomas Allin, and employed with some success and distinction agamst the Algerine pirates. In 1670 he commanded the Nonsuch, still in the Mediterranean, and in 1671 returned to England in command of the Dover. In 1672 he commanded the Resolution in the hard-fought battle of Solebay, and won much credit by the timely and resolute succour he brought to the Duke of York when hard pressed, in acknowledgment of which he was specially knighted by the king on the return of the fleet to the Nore. In the battle of 28 May 1672 he again distinguished himself by his forward and resolute conduct, his ship suffering so severely that she had to be sent into port. In 1675 he was again in the Mediterranean in command of the Bristol, and seems to have been employed on that station, with few intermissions, till 1680. In 1682 he was appointed to the Gloucester, in which the Duke of York took a passage for Scotland; but on 6 May, by the mistake of the pilot, she ran on to a sandbank off the Yorkshire coast, and was totally lost. The Duke of York and as many of his train as could be put into the boat were saved; the yachts in company sent their boats and picked up many of the men, including Berry himself, who stayed by the ship till the last, and took his chance with the rest (Pepys to Hewer, 8 May 1682; Diary and Correspondence of Sam. Pepys, Bright's ed., vi. 142; Add. MS. 15892, ff. 132, 134): but, notwithstanding every exertion, several of the young noblemen and about 150 of the ship's company were lost. Berry was acquitted of all blame, and the next month was appointed