Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 34.djvu/199

 Lowe was bound to defend his character as a public servant whose conduct it had approved.

In 1823 Lowe was appointed governor of Antigua, but resigned on domesyic grounds. He was afterwards appointed to the staff in Ceylon as second in command under Sir Edward Barnes [q. v.] Leaving his family in Paris, he set out late in 1825, and remained in Ceylon until 1828, when the animadversions suggested in the last volume of Sir Walter Scott's 'Life of Napoleon' brought him home on leave. He met with a spontaneous and hearty welcome at St. Helena on the way. His return gave much offence in official quarters, as the reasons were deemed inadequate. His appeals to Lord Bathurst and the Duke of Wellington led to no result, and by the advice of Wellington he went back to Ceylon, looking forward to succeed to the chief command. His appointment was vacated by his promotion to lieutenant-general in 1830, the opposite party came into power, Ceylon received a new governor, and Lowe's hopes of further preferment or pension were never fulfilled. He returned to England in 1831, and from that time until his death was engaged incessantly in memorialising the government in respect of his claims. Letters after letters, in the composition of which he was endlessly fastidious, were forwarded to the colonial office year by year without result. He was gratified by his transfer, in 1842, to the colonelcy of his old corps, the 50th, and his advancement in the same year to the highest class of the Prussian order of the Red Eagle, which was notified in a highly flattering letter from Baron von Bulow, recalling his 'signal services to the common cause in the glorious campaigns of 1813-14.' He was also made a G.C.M.G. On leaving St. Helena, Lowe was fairly rich, having 20,000l. in the funds, and much valuable property, including a fine and extensive library; but before his death the heavy expenses in which he had been involved had left him, save for his military emoluments, a poor man. Lowe died at Charlotte Cottage, near Sloane Street, Chelsea, of paralysis, on 10 Jan. 1844. aged 75.

Lowe married in London on 16 Dec. 1816, Mrs. Susan Johnson, a bright agreeable woman of thirty-five, daughter of Stephen de Lancey, sister of Sir William Howe de Lancey, and widow of Colonel William Johnson. By her first husband she had two daughters, the survivor of whom married Count Balmain, the Russian commissioner at St. Helena during Napoleon's Captivity. By her marriage with Lowe she had two sons and a daughter, all born in St. Helena. The younger son, Edward William Howe de Lancey Lowe, is separately noticed. The daughter was recommended for a small pension by Sir Robert Peel on her father's death. Lady Lowe died in Hertford Street, Mayfair, London, on 22 Aug. 1832.

Lowe was a light-built, fair-haired man, rather below the middle size. He had a quick, restless manner, but was never fluent of speech, even under excitement. The only good portrait of him is said to be that by Wyvile, taken about 1832, and engraved in Forsyth's book.

Lowe's papers were entrusted to the late Sir Harris Nicolas to prepare for publication, but the arrangement was abandoned after many delays arising out of the mass of documents to be dealt with. Subsequently they were placed by the publisher of the 'Quarterly Review' in the hands of the late William Forsyth, M.A., by whom the leading facts were embodied in his 'Captivity of Napoleon at St. Helena, from the Letters and Journals of Sir Hudson Lowe,' London. 1853, 3 vols. The 'Lowe Papers,' part of which supplied the materials for Forsyth's book, and which comprise copies of Lowe's entire official correspondence from 1793 to 1837, together with a mass of notes and memoranda necessary to a right understanding of affairs at St. Helena under Lowe's government, including copies of O'Mearn's original letters to his friend Mr. Finlaison, taken at the admiralty, are now in the British Museum, forming Addit. MSS. 20107-240 (period 1793-1827) and 29543 (extra 1804-15). Another volume of letters from and to Lowe forms Addit. MS. 15729.

[Army Lists and London Gazettes; Memoir of Lowe in Colburn's United Service Magazine, April-June 1844; Bunbury's Narrative of Passages in the late War, London, 1854; Basil Jackson's 'Tribute to the Memory of Sir Hudson Lowe' in Colburn's United Service Mag. March 1844; Henry's Events of a Military Life, London, 1843, vol. ii.; Forsyth's Captivity of Napoleon at St. Helena, London, 1853. 3 vols.; B. Jackson's Notes and Reminiscences of a Staff Officer, London, 1877 (privately printed); Brit. Mus. Addit. MSS. at supra; information supplied by Miss Lowe (Lowe's daughter). A reprint of O'Meara's Voice from St. Helena was published in London in 1888. with an introduction by Lieutenant-colonel R. W. Phipps, late royal artillery, written in spirit unfavourable to Lowe. The biographies and notes added to the work are worthless]  LOWE, JAMES (d. 1865), journalist and translator, began life as editor of a newspaper at Preston, and from 1843 to 1863 edited 'The Critic of Literature, Science, and the Drama.' He was also a contributor to the 'Field' and the 'Queen,' and was one of the secretaries of the Acclimatisation 