Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 18.djvu/132

 disturbances occurred among the soldiers. In December 1677 a serious mutiny took place, which Fairborne promptly quelled; wrenching a musket from the leading mutineer, he shot him dead on the spot. He afterwards wrote home regretting that any man should have fallen by his hand, but hoped that the king would not condemn his zeal in his service (ib. i. 122). In the spring of 1678 he went to England. Two years after, 25 March 1680, the Moors, under their emperor, Muley Hassan, blockaded Tangier, and Fairborne returned early in April to conduct the defence as sole governor and commander-in-chief. In July a new governor, the Earl of Ossory, was appointed over Fairborne's head, in Inchiquin's place. Fairborne petitioned in August that ‘the small pittance of 500l. per annum allowed him as commander-in-chief might not be taken away, nor yet his pension, as things at Tangier are three times as dear as in England, and he had not received a farthing of pay’ (ib. i. 158–60). Ossory died on 30 July, and Fairborne remained as sole defender of Tangier. The Moors made a desperate attack in October. On the 24th the governor, riding out of the town to inspect the defences, took part in a slight skirmish and was mortally wounded by ‘a chance shot,’ according to his epitaph, but an account of the engagement says that ‘being a man of undaunted spirit, in courage and resolution fearing nothing, but still riding in every place of danger to animate his soldiers, and never changing his horse, the enemy did know him, and firing often, with an unfortunate and fatal shot wounded him mortally’ (see account of his death, ib. i. 171, &c.). After three days' fighting, which the dying governor watched from a balcony, the Moors were forced to raise the siege and repulsed with great loss, while Fairborne, lingering till evening (27 Oct.), saw his victorious troops march into the town. An account is given of his dying speech in a paper called ‘The Tangiers Rescue,’ by John Ross, 1681, and all agree in calling him a ‘worthy, able, and brave officer’ (Shere's Diary; Tangier State Papers, No. 30, 27 Oct. 1680, p. 254), ‘a man of undaunted resolution and spirit,’ and ‘of indefatigable diligence’ (, i. 177). By his wife, Margaret Devereux (first married to a Mr. Mansell), he left a large family in great poverty, but early in 1681 the king granted Lady Fairborne an annuity of 500l. (Notes and Queries, 2nd ser. iv. 351); their eldest son, Stafford [q. v.], became a knight and rear-admiral. Lady Fairborne afterwards remarried (Paston, son of the first Earl of Yarmouth). She died in 1698, and was buried in Westminster Abbey (, Abbey Registers). She erected a monument in the nave of the abbey to Fairborne, with an epitaph by Dryden recounting his exploits. Three years after Fairborne's death Tangier was abandoned to the Moors, and the costly fortifications razed to the ground.

[History of the 2nd Queen's, now the Royal West Surrey Regiment, by Lt.-col. John Davis, vol. i. passim; Addit. MSS. 15892, f. 90, and 17021, f. 14, &c.]  FAIRBORNE, STAFFORD (d. 1742), admiral of the fleet, was the eldest son of Sir Palmes Fairborne [q. v.], governor of Tangiers. In June 1685 Stafford was lieutenant of the Bonadventure at Tangiers, and during the illness of his captain commanded the ship in a successful encounter with some Sallee vessels at Mamora (, ii. 94 n.) On 12 July 1686 he was promoted to command the Half Moon, a Sallee prize, and in August 1688 was appointed to the Richmond, from which he was moved into the Fairfax, and, after the revolution, into the Warspite of 70 guns, which he commanded at the battle of Beachy Head, 30 June 1690. At the siege of Cork, in the September following, he served on shore under Marlborough, probably with a naval brigade; in 1692 he commanded the Elizabeth of 70 guns at the battle of Barfleur, and in 1693 the Monck of 52 guns in the fleet under Sir George Rooke [q. v.], which on 19 June, while in charge of the Smyrna convoy, was so disastrously scattered by the French off Cape St. Vincent (, Transactions at Sea, p. 486). In 1695 he commanded the Victory, a first-rate, and was moved out of her into the Defiance, a third-rate, on 3 Feb. 1695–6, ‘to command the outward-bound trade in the Downs.’ On 22 March he was moved back again to the Victory; in June into the London, also a first-rate; and shortly after into the Albemarle, a second-rate. These rapid changes illustrate the peculiar inconvenience of the system then in vogue of paying a captain according to the rate of the ship he commanded. Fairborne was assured at the time that, as they were made for the advantage of the service, they should not be any prejudice to him; but three years later he was still petitioning the admiralty for compensation for the loss he had sustained, amounting in pay alone to nearly 200l. (Captains' Letters, 12 July 1698, 6 June 1699). In May 1699 he was appointed to the Torbay, but that ship being found not nearly ready, he was transferred to the Suffolk, which he commanded till the end of the year as senior officer in the Downs or at Spithead. In January 1700 he was appointed to the Til-