Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 34.djvu/339

 Chalmers's ‘British Essayists’ (1803 and 1823) as a library edition. 

LYNCH, DOMINIC, D.D. (d. 1697?), Dominican friar, born in the county of Galway, was son of Peter Lynch of Shruell, by his wife, Mary Skerret. When the town of Galway was taken by the parliamentarians his parents lost all they had. He joined the order of St. Dominic, and made his profession in the convent of St. Paul at Seville, where he lived for many years in great reputation, officiating as synodal judge under the archbishop. He became lecturer in arts and philosophy in his convent, and afterwards master of the students. In 1674 he was appointed to the chair of theology in the college of St. Thomas, after a special commissioner had brought from Ireland a satisfactory well attested report respecting ‘the pedigree, life, and behaviour of Doctor Domnick Lynch.’ This curious report is printed, with annotations by James Hardiman, in ‘The Miscellany of the Irish Archæological Society,’ i. 44–90. Lynch was elected by his brethren of the province of Andalucia to attend the congregation of the order held at Rome in 1686, over which he presided as moderator. He died in the college of St. Thomas at the end of 1697 or the beginning of the following year.

Lynch wrote: ‘Summa Philosophiæ Speculativæ juxta Mentem et Doctrinam S. Thomæ et Aristotelis. Tom. 1. Complectens primam Partem Philosophiæ Rationis, quæ communiter nuncupantur Dialectica,’ Paris, 1666, 4to; ‘Tom. 2. Complectens duas Partes, quæ communiter nuncupantur Logica,’ Paris, 1667, 4to; ‘Tom. 3. Comprehendens tertiam Partem Philosophiæ rationalis, in quâ agitur de Prædicabilibus, Prædicamentis, et de Posterioribus,’ Paris, 1670, 4to; ‘Tom. 4. Complectens primam Partem Physicæ naturalis,’ Paris, 1686, 4to. 

LYNCH, HENRY BLOSSE (1807–1873), Mesopotamian explorer, born 24 Nov. 1807, was third of the eleven sons of Major Henry Blois Lynch of Partry House, Ballinrobe, co. Mayo, and was brother of Thomas Kerr Lynch [q. v.] and of Patrick Edward Lynch [q. v.] The father, at one time of the 27th foot, distinguished himself at the capture of Ciudad Rodrigo when serving in the Portuguese army under Marshal Beresford; he married Eliza, daughter of Robert Finniss of Hythe, Kent, and died in 1843. Two other sons, besides the three noticed separately, served in India. Richard Blosse Lynch, lieutenant in the 21st Bengal native infantry, was lost in the steamer Tigris in 1836 when serving with the first Euphrates expedition; and Michael Lynch, lieutenant in the Indian navy, died at Diarbekir in 1840 when employed on the second Euphrates expedition.

Henry Blosse joined the late Indian navy as a volunteer, under the name of Henry Lynch, in 1823, and was rated as midshipman on 27 March the same year. He was employed for several years on the survey of the Persian Gulf. He appears to have had a talent for languages, and neither the depressing climate of the gulf nor the miseries of the wretched little survey-brigs deterred him from a close study of Persian and Arabic. On his promotion to lieutenant in 1829 he was appointed Persian and Arabic interpreter to the gulf squadron, a post he held until 1832. During that time he was repeatedly employed in negotiations with the sheiks of the Arab tribes of the gulf. He obtained leave from India in 1832; was shipwrecked in the H. E. I. C. brig Nautilus in the Red Sea, and, after leaving his shipmates, crossed the Nubian desert north of Abyssinia, descended the Nile to Egypt, and thence shipped home. In 1834, owing to his great local knowledge and general abilities, he was selected as second in command of the expedition under Colonel Francis Rawdon Chesney [q. v.], despatched to explore the Euphrates route to India. Preceding it, Lynch made preparations for the landing of the expedition in the Bay of Antioch, after which he chose a site near Bir or Birejek, on the Euphrates, for slips, in which the two steam-vessels sent out from England in pieces were to be put together. After this he was constantly employed in negotiations with neighbouring sheiks, often a task of great delicacy, in which he displayed much tact and judgment. When the two steamers were launched, Lynch received command of the Tigris, and the survey of the river Euphrates was successfully carried down for a distance of over five hundred miles. On 21 May 1836 the Tigris foundered in a furious hurricane, with the loss of twenty lives, among the latter being Lynch's brother, Richard Blosse. The surviving steamer, the Euphrates, was then laid up for a time at Bushire. After Chesney's return to England in 1837, Lynch was given command of the expedition, and with characteristic energy ascended the Tigris to