Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 37.djvu/120

 Both Wood and Hearne praise Maurice's fine scholarship, solid judgment, ready wit, and blameless life. He was an eloquent extempore preacher and a learned controversialist, being especially well versed in canon law. He wrote: 1. ‘A Vindication of the Primitive Church and Diocesan Episcopacy, in Answer to Mr. Baxter's Church History of Bishops,’ &c. [anon.], 8vo, London, 1682. To this Baxter rejoined the same year in his ‘True History of Councils enlarged and defended,’ and appended to his book a reply called ‘Diocesan Churches not yet discovered in the Primitive Times,’ by the anonymous author of a tract entitled ‘No Evidence for Diocesan Churches,’ 1681, whose arguments Maurice had also assailed. 2. ‘The Antithelemite; or an Answer to certain Quæres by the D[uke] of B[uckingham], and to the Considerations of an unknown Author concerning Toleration’ [anon.], 4to, London, 1685. 3. ‘The Project for repealing the Penal Laws and Tests, with the honourable means used to effect it,’ &c. [anon.], 4to [London, 1688], a satirical tract, secretly printed, on James's efforts to introduce Roman catholicism. 4. ‘Doubts concerning the Roman Infallibility’ [anon.], 4to, London, 1688 (reprinted in Bishop Gibson's collection, called ‘A Preservative against Popery,’ edit. 1738, vol. i., and edit. 1848, vol. iv.). 5. ‘Letter to a Member of the House of Commons concerning the Bishops lately in the Tower, and now under Suspension’ [anon.], 4to, London, 1689. 6. ‘Remarks from the Country upon the two Letters relating to the Convocation and Alterations in the Liturgy’ [anon.], 4to, London, 1689. 7. ‘The Lawfulness of taking the new Oaths asserted’ [anon.], 4to, London, 1689. 8. ‘A Defence of Diocesan Episcopacy, in Answer to a Book of Mr. David Clarkson … entituled “Primitive Episcopacy,”’ 8vo, London, 1691; 2nd edit. 1700. Maurice also published in 1682 a sermon preached before the king at Whitehall on 30 Jan. 1681–2, which was reprinted in 1744. He was the reputed author of ‘Animadversions on Dr. Burnet's “History of the Rights of Princes,”’ 4to, London, 1682, which elicited an ‘Answer’ from Burnet in the same year. Maurice was an intimate friend of Henry Wharton, a fellow-chaplain at Lambeth, whom he assisted in the composition of the ‘Defence of Pluralities,’ 1692. In 1688 Maurice was bitterly attacked by an anonymous Roman catholic writer in ‘Some Reasons tender'd to impartial People why Dr. Henry Maurice ought not to be traduc'd as the Licenser of the Pamphlet entituled “A plain Answer to a Popish Priest, questioning the Orders of the Church of England,”’ appended to ‘Twenty-one Conclusions further demonstrating the Schism of the Church of England,’ 4to, Oxford. 

MAURICE, JAMES WILKES (1775–1857), rear-admiral, was born at Devonport on 10 Feb. 1775. He entered the navy in 1789 as ‘able seaman’ on board the Inspector sloop, and in 1793 was midshipman of the Powerful, which convoyed a fleet of Indiamen to the Cape of Good Hope. He afterwards served in the Cambridge, Concorde, and Royal George, all in the Channel and off Brest; and on 3 April 1797 was promoted to be lieutenant of the Glory. In 1799 he was moved to the Canada, and in September 1802 was appointed to the Centaur, going out to the West Indies with Commodore Samuel Hood (1762–1814) [q. v.] In her he was present at the reduction of St. Lucia, Tobago, Demerara, and Essequibo; and was landed, 26 Nov. 1803, at the destruction of a battery at Petite Anse d'Arlet in Martinique, when he was severely wounded by the explosion of the magazine. When the Diamond Rock, Martinique (see, Voyages of Discovery, &c., ii. 190) was occupied, armed, and commissioned as a ‘sloop of war,’ 3 Feb. 1804, Maurice was appointed to the command, and his promotion was confirmed by the admiralty to 7 May 1804. For more than a year Maurice held this rock, a thorn in the sides of the French at Martinique; and yielded to an attack in force by a detachment of Villeneuve's fleet, 31 May–2 June 1805, only when his ammunition was exhausted. In the three days the English lost two men killed and one wounded; the loss of the French, on the other hand, was severe, but has never been exactly stated. Maurice estimated it at seventy killed and wounded of the landing party alone, exclusive of those on board the ships and gunboats. Maurice was tried by court-martial for the loss of his post, but was honourably acquitted, and highly complimented on his conduct (, iii. 244–5, 349;, p. 148). He returned to England in August, and was immediately appointed to the Savage brig, which after two years in the Channel was sent out to the West Indies. There, in the autumn of 1808, he was appointed by Sir Alexander Cochrane governor of Marie Galante, which had been seized in the previous March. On 18 Jan. 1809 he was advanced to post rank.

In October 1809 he was compelled by ill-