Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 37.djvu/121

 health to return to England, and in July 1810 he was appointed governor of the island of Anholt, in the Baltic, which had been captured, without difficulty, in May 1809, by a small squadron under the command of Captain [q. v.] The island had been found most useful as a depôt of trade and as a station for communicating with the continent, and when Maurice was appointed it was understood that neither Bonaparte nor the Danes would lose any opportunity of recapturing it. It was garrisoned by about four hundred marines, under the command of Captain Torrens. As long as the weather remained open the English cruisers secured it from attack, as, afterwards, did the severity of the winter. As soon as the water was open an attempt was made by the Danes to retake it. Twelve gunboats convoyed the Danish transports, and in the early morning of 27 March 1811, in darkness and fog, a force of a thousand men was landed about four miles from the fort. The enemy were ignorant that the Tartar frigate and Sheldrake brig had arrived from England the day before; the Danish troops advanced gallantly to the assault, driving in the advanced parties of the English, while the gunboats opened a lively fire on the sea defences. The approach of the Tartar put another complexion on the matter. The gunboats withdrew; a small schooner attached to the island took up a position on the enemy's flank, and drove them from behind the sandhills, while the direct fire from the fort was well sustained and deadly. Finding no retreat open to them, the Danes on the north side, to the number of 543, surrendered at discretion; the rest fled to the west end of the island, where, temporarily guarded by the reefs, they managed to get on board the gunboats and transports. These, however, were pursued and scattered by the English ships; four of them were captured; one was sunk (, v. 222). The loss to the Danes was very severe; but Maurice's conduct, splendid as it undoubtedly was, was much exaggerated in popular estimation. The decisive support of the Tartar and Sheldrake was ignored or unknown; the force of the Danes was magnified; and the garrison of barely four hundred men was described as defeating and capturing a force of ten times its numbers. Maurice retained his governorship till September 1812. He had no further employment, and was retired with the rank of rear-admiral on 1 Oct. 1846. He died at Stonehouse on 4 Sept. 1857 in his eighty-third year.

Maurice married, in October 1814, Miss Sarah Lyne of Plymouth, but was left a widower in the following June. 

MAURICE, THOMAS (1754–1824), oriental scholar and historian, came of an ancient Welsh family which claimed connection with the princes of Powis, and descent from (fl. 1093) [q. v.] His father, Thomas, was articled to a West India merchant, made several voyages to the West Indies, and after a three years' settlement at Jamaica opened an academy at Clapham, and married an elderly lady with some property. In 1737 he was elected head-master of a school at Hertford belonging to Christ's Hospital. His first wife had died, and Thomas, the eldest of six children by a second, was born at Hertford in 1754. His father died in 1763 and his mother married an Irish methodist, who is said to have treated her badly, while Thomas was sent to Christ's Hospital, thence to Ealing, and subsequently, through his mother's influence, to Kingswood School, Bath. Taking chambers in the Inner Temple, he found the study of classical and English literature more attractive than that of law, and under the tuition of Dr. [q. v.], at Stanmore, devoted himself to classics. On 6 May 1774 he matriculated from St. John's College, Oxford, migrated after a year to University College, and graduated B.A. in 1778 and M.A. in 1808. While at Oxford he published a translation of the Œdipus Tyrannus, for which Dr. Johnson wrote a preface (, Boswell, iii. 370 n. 2) and some English poems. He was ordained by Bishop Lowth on leaving Oxford and became curate of Woodford, Essex; he was also, through the influence of Dr. Johnson, offered the curacy of Bosworth. In 1785 he relinquished his curacy for the chapel of Epping, and about the same time purchased the chaplaincy of the 97th regiment, which was disbanded soon afterwards, and Maurice received half-pay for the rest of his life. In 1798 he was presented by Earl Spencer to the vicarage of Wormleighton, Warwickshire; in the same year he became assistant keeper of manuscripts in the British Museum, and in 1804, on the presentation of the lord-chancellor, vicar of Cudham, Kent. All these offices he retained until his death. In 1800 he obtained, through [q. v.], the pension which had been enjoyed by Cowper. Maurice died on 30 March 1824 in his apartments at the British Museum. In 1786 he married the daughter of Thomas Pearce, a captain in the service of the East India Company; she died in 1790. 