Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 18.djvu/145

 was not till January 1687–8 that he was received as a volunteer on board the Mary, the flagship of Sir Roger Strickland [q. v.] Within a few weeks after the accession of William and Mary, Fairfax was promoted to be lieutenant of the Bonadventure, commanded by Captain (afterwards Sir Thomas) Hopsonn [q. v.] In her he was present at the battle in Bantry Bay, 1 May 1689, and afterwards at the relief of Londonderry, 28 July [see ]. In June 1690 Hopsonn was relieved in the command of the Bonadventure by Captain Hubbard, but Fairfax, remaining in her, was present at the battle of Beachy Head on 30 June 1690. On 15 Nov. he was promoted to the command of the Conception prize, and for the next two years was stationed at Boston in New England, cruising against the French privateers. In June 1693 Fairfax was moved into the Pembroke of 60 guns, and, returning in her to England, was appointed to the command of the Ruby, a 48-gun ship, ordered to cruise on the coast of Ireland for the protection of trade. While on this service he had the good fortune to capture, after a hard-fought action, the Entreprenant, a French privateer of the same nominal force, but larger, and with a more numerous complement. In recognition of this service he was promoted, 24 Dec. 1694, to the command of the Newark of 80 guns, in which, and afterwards in the Cornwall, he was employed in convoy service, in the Channel, in the Bay of Biscay, or on the coast of Portugal, till the peace of Ryswick [see, third ; ; ].

By the death of his elder brother, on 20 Jan. 1694, he had succeeded to the Steeton and Newton Kyme estates, and on 20 Nov. of the same year had married Esther, the sister of his old captain, Bushell, and widow of a Mr. Charles Tomlinson of Whitby, to whom, though ten years older than himself, he had had a boyish attachment from the time of his first going to sea. In May 1699 Fairfax commissioned the Severn, which in the following year was one of the fleet sent under Sir George Rooke [q. v.] to maintain the treaty of Altona as between Denmark and Holstein. On returning from the Baltic he was appointed to the Cambridge, and in January 1701–2, on the eve of the declaration of war, was transferred to the 70-gun ship Restoration, one of the squadron which sailed under Sir John Munden [q. v.] in May. After failing to intercept the French squadron off Corunna, Munden and his ships returned to Spithead, and in the following autumn Fairfax was sent out to reinforce the grand fleet, which he joined at Vigo on 18 Oct., too late to share in the glory or the treasure, but in time to take part in the labour of refitting the prizes and bringing them to England. The Restoration was then put out of commission, and in January 1702–3 Fairfax was appointed to the Somerset, from which in May he was transferred to the Kent as flag-captain to Rear-admiral Thomas Dilkes [q. v.], with whom he served during the summer, and especially in the wholesale capture or destruction of the French merchant ships at Granville on 26 July, a service for which Fairfax and the other captains engaged, as well as the rear-admiral, received a gold medal. With the new year Fairfax commissioned the Berwick, a 70-gun ship, in which he sailed in March to join Sir George Rooke and the grand fleet at Lisbon; with this the Berwick continued during the summer; was one of the six ships which vainly chased a French squadron off Cape Palos on 8 May, a failure for which Fairfax and the other captains were tried by court-martial, but fully acquitted; was one of the division actually engaged under Byng at the reduction of Gibraltar (23 July), for his share in which exploit ‘the queen afterwards presented Fairfax with a silver cup and cover bearing a suitable inscription, which is still preserved by his descendants’ (MARKHAM, p. 181); and took an honourable part in the battle of Malaga (13 Aug.), where her masts, rigging, and sails were shattered and torn, and she had sixty-nine men killed and wounded. The fleet afterwards returned to England for the winter, and in the following February the Berwick was paid off at Chatham, Fairfax being immediately appointed to the Torbay. In her he again went to the Mediterranean, under the command of Shovell, and participated with the fleet in the reduction of Barcelona. After the capture of Monjuich the prisoners were sent on board the Torbay; the Torbay supplied guns to arm the fort, and sailors to haul them up the hill; her marines were landed for service in the trenches, and Fairfax himself had command of the seven bomb vessels, whose terrible fire cowed the garrison, and rendered the approaches of the besiegers easier and safer. When the town capitulated on 4 Oct. the season was already far advanced, and, according to the custom of the day, the fleet at once returned to England. In March 1706 Fairfax was appointed to the Barfleur, and commander-in-chief in the Thames and Medway, but in May he was ordered round to Spithead to join Shovell, then preparing to carry over an expeditionary force intended to effect a descent on the coast of France. After vainly waiting for a