Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 20.djvu/10

 on the chart with some approach to accuracy, and returned to Achin in March 1776. The voyage was one of examination and inquiry rather than of discovery, and the additions made to geographical knowledge were corrections of detail rather than startling novelties; but the tact with which Forrest had conducted his intercourse with the natives, and the amount of work done in a crazy boat of ten tons, deservedly won him credit as a navigator. He published a detailed account of the voyage, under the title, ‘A Voyage to New Guinea and the Moluccas from Balambangan … during the years 1774–5–6’ (4to, 1779), with a portrait. In December 1782 Forrest was employed by the governor-general, Warren Hastings, to gain intelligence of the French fleet, which had left the coast of India, and evaded the observation of Sir Edward Hughes [q. v.], the English commander-in-chief. It was believed that it had gone to Mauritius. Forrest found it at Achin, and bringing back the information to Vizagapatam, just before the return of the French, saved many country vessels from falling into their hands. In the following June he sailed again to survey the Andaman Islands, but falling to leeward of them, passed through the Preparis Channel to the Tenasserim coast, which he examined southwards as far as Quedah; the account of the voyage, under the title, ‘A Journal of the Esther Brig, Capt. Thomas Forrest, from Bengal to Quedah, in 1783,’ was afterwards edited by Dalrymple, and published at the charge of the East India Company (4to, 1789). In 1790 he made a fuller examination of the same coast and of the islands lying off it, in, as he discovered, a long row, leaving a sheltered passage 125 miles long between them and the main land, to which he gave the name of Forrest Strait, by which it is still known. The results of this voyage were published as ‘A Voyage from Calcutta to the Mergui Archipelago’ (4to, 1792), with which were included some minor essays and descriptive accounts, as well as a reprint of the ‘Treatise on the Monsoons.’ This volume is dedicated to William Aldersey, president of the board of trade in Bengal, by his ‘most affectionate cousin,’ with which solitary exception we have no information as to his family. Forrest is said to have died in India about 1802.

[Forrest's own writings, as enumerated above, seem the only foundation of the several memoirs that have been written, the best of which is that in the Biographie Universelle (Supplément). Some letters to Warren Hastings in 1784–5, in Addit. MSS. 29164 f. 171, 29166 f. 135, 29169 f. 118, show that before 1790 he had already examined the Mergui Islands.]  FORREST, WILLIAM (fl. 1581), catholic priest and poet, is stated by Wood to have been a relative of John Forest [q. v.], the Franciscan friar. He received his education at Christ Church, Oxford, and he was present at the discussions held at Oxford in 1530, when Henry VIII desired to procure the judgment of the university in the matter of the divorce. He appears to have attended the funeral of Queen Catherine of Arragon at Peterborough in 1536. He was an eyewitness of the erection of Wolsey's college upon the site of the priory of St. Frideswide, and there can be no doubt that he was appointed to some post in the college as refounded by the king, as his name occurs among the pensioned members after its dissolution as the recipient of an annual allowance of 6l. in 1553 and 1556. In 1548 he had dedicated his version of the treatise ‘De regimine Principum’ to the Duke of Somerset, as also in 1551 his paraphrase of some of the psalms. This continued choice of patron, coupled with the character of the latter work, affords some ground for Warton's suspicion that Forrest ‘could accommodate his faith to the reigning powers.’ In 1553, however, he came forward with warm congratulations on the accession of Mary, and, being in priest's orders, he was soon afterwards nominated one of the queen's chaplains. Among Browne Willis's manuscript collections for Buckinghamshire, preserved in the Bodleian Library, double entries are found of the presentation of William Forest by Anthony Lamson on 1 July 1556 to the vicarage of Bledlow in that county; but in Lipscomb's ‘Buckinghamshire’ the name of the presentee is given as William Fortescue, and the discrepancy has not yet been cleared up. In 1558 Forrest presented to Queen Mary his poem of ‘The Second Gresyld.’ Of his career after the death of his royal mistress nothing certain is known. He was probably protected by Thomas Howard, duke of Norfolk, to whom he dedicated his ‘History of Joseph’ shortly before the duke's execution in 1572. Forrest remained in the same faith to the last. This is shown by the fact that the two dates ‘27 Oct. 1572, per me Guil. Forrestum,’ and ‘1581’ occur in a volume (Harl. MS. 1703) containing a poem which in a devout tone treats of the life of the Blessed Virgin and of the Immaculate Conception. But, although a Roman catholic, he was not papal, and in one of his poems he speaks strongly of the right of each national branch of the church to enjoy self-government. He was well skilled in music, and had a collection of the choicest compositions then in vogue. These manuscripts came into the hands of Dr. Heather,