Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 33.djvu/118

Rh Egypt … turned into English verse,’ 1699 (, Cat. iii. 1001). With the exception of No. 4, all these rare volumes are in the British Museum.

 LESPEC, WALTER (d. 1153), founder of Rievaulx Abbey. [See ]

LESSE, NICHOLAS (fl. 1550), religious writer, is described by Tanner as a citizen and merchant of London. There is no evidence in support of this statement, except that Lesse's books were published in London. He was a friend of Bishop Bale, who encouraged him in his literary enterprises. His only original work is the ‘Apologie of the Worde of God, declarynge how necessarye it is to be in all men's hands, the want whereof is the cause of al vngodliness’ [London, 1547, 8vo]. This work is appended to his translation of Melanchthon's ‘Justification of Man by Faith only,’ likewise published in 1547. He also translated the following works: 1. ‘The Minde and Judgement of Maister F. Lambert of Auenna, of the wyll of Man,’ London [1548], 8vo. 2. ‘The Censure and Judgement of the famous Clark Erasmus, of Roterodam, whether Dyuorsemente … standeth with the Lawe of God,’ London [1550], 8vo. 3. St. Augustine's ‘Twelfe Steppes of Abuses,’ London, 1550, 8vo. 4. St. Augustine's ‘Predestination of Saints, and Vertue of Perseveraunce to thend,’ London, 1550, 8vo. According to Tanner's unsupported statement, he also translated Luther's ‘Commentaries on the two Epistles of St. Peter,’ Polydore Vergil's ‘De Inventoribus Rerum,’ and Æpinus on certain ‘Psalms.’

 LESTER, FREDERICK PARKINSON (1795–1858), major-general, Bombay artillery, third son of John Lester, merchant, of Racquet Court, Fleet Street, and his wife, Elizabeth Parkinson, born on 3 Feb. 1795, was educated at Mr. Jephson's academy at Camberwell and at Addiscombe. He qualified for a commission on 22 April 1811. His commissions, all regimental ones in the Bombay artillery, were dated, second lieutenant 25 Oct. 1811, lieutenant 3 Sept. 1815, captain 1 Sept. 1818, major 14 May 1836, lieutenant-colonel 9 Aug. 1840 (Bombay G. O. 8 Sept. 1840), brevet-colonel 15 March 1851 (G. O. 3 June 1851), major-general 28 Nov. 1854. Of his forty-five years of service thirty-seven were passed in India, chiefly as acting commissary of ordnance, commissary of stores, secretary to, and afterwards ordinary member of the military board. A system of book-keeping by double entry, introduced by him, was ordered to be generally adopted in the ordnance department (Mil. Com. 21 May 1834, No. 2484). As an ordinary member of the military board he was ‘specially thanked for his zealous and efficient services’ by the governor of Bombay (G. O. 7 April 1847). Lester was a man of deep religious convictions, and his leaving a mess breakfast-table at which Sir John (afterwards Lord) Keane [q. v.] was present, in protest against the profane tone of the conversation, placed him long under an official cloud. In April 1858 he was appointed to the command of the southern division of the Bombay army, with headquarters at Belgaum, and assumed command there on 12 May 1857. His wise measures during the months of May to September 1857 were believed by Sir George Le Grand Jacob [q. v.] ‘in all probability to have prevented an explosion at Belgaum’ (Western India, p. 218). These measures, of which there is a memorandum in possession of the family, consisted chiefly of the repair of the fort, the removal of the powder and ammunition within the fort, night patrols, chiefly of civilian volunteers, deportation of suspected sepoys, removal of guns, gun-carriages, horses, &c., from the exterior to the interior of the fort; removal of the depot of H.M. 64th, with its four hundred European women and children, into the fort; vetoing the proposal of the commanding officer of the 29th Bombay native infantry, backed by the political agent, Mr. Seton-Karr, to disarm the regiment as mutineers, on the ground of the inadequacy of any European force for the task, and the certainty of a failure, ending in disaster; the holding of courts-martial and execution and punishment of rebels on the arrival of British troops (10 Aug. 1857) (see, Reminiscences). One of these courts-martial consisted entirely of native non-commissioned officers. The measures were preventive only, but they were among the measures which prevented the flame of insurrection spreading to Western India, and Lester has hardly been given the credit justly due to him in respect of them. He was found dead in his bed of heart disease at 7 on 3 July 1858, at Belgaum.

Lester married first, in 1828, at St. Thomas's Church, Bombay, Helen Elizabeth Honner, by whom he had two children, who died in infancy; and secondly, in 1840, at Mahableshwur, Charlotte Pratt, daughter of the Rev. Charles Fyvie; by her he had five children, two of whom survive. 