Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 40.djvu/27

 and brought to action by the Artois. On the other frigates coming up the Révolutionnaire surrendered. She was a new and very fine ship, and was for several years one of the crack frigates in the English navy. For his gallant service Nagle was knighted. The next year the Artois was with Warren in the expedition to Quiberon, and, continuing on the French coast, was lost on a sandbank off Rochelle on 31 July 1797, when in chase of a French frigate.

In August 1798 Nagle married ‘a lady of ample fortune—the widow of John Lucie Blackman of Craven Street’—after which he had little service at sea. In 1801–2 he commanded the Majestic, and afterwards the Juste for a few months, and in 1803 was appointed to command the sea fencibles of the Sussex coast. At this time, making his headquarters at Brighton, he was introduced to the Prince of Wales, and, telling a good story, and overflowing with rollicking Irish humour, became a great favourite. He was made rear-admiral on 9 Nov. 1805, and for a short time hoisted his flag on board the Inconstant at Guernsey. He was promoted to be vice-admiral on 31 July 1810, and, again for a short time, was commander-in-chief at Leith. In 1813 he was governor of Newfoundland, and in 1814, when the allied monarchs reviewed the fleet at Spithead, he was nominated aide-de-camp to the prince-regent. On 2 Jan. 1815 he was made a K.C.B., and on 12 Aug. 1819 was promoted to the rank of admiral.

During all this time, however, with these few intermissions, he was in attendance on the prince, and in 1820, on the prince's accession to the throne, was appointed groom of the bedchamber. He is described as a man of great good nature and a simplicity of mind which was said to make him the butt for some coarse practical jokes. He died at his house at East Molesey, Surrey, on 14 March 1830, leaving no issue.

[Marshall's Roy. Nav. Biog. i. 277; Gent. Mag. 1830, i. 469; Brenton's Naval History.] 

NAGLE, NANO or HONORA (1728–1784), foundress of the Presentation order of nuns, born in 1728, was daughter of Garrett Nagle of Ballygriffin near Mallow, co. Cork. The Nagles were of Anglo-Norman origin: a kinswoman (Miss Nagle of Shanballyduff, co. Cork) was mother of Burke. Nano's mother belonged to the Mathew family of Thomastown, co. Tipperary, and was connected with Father Mathew [q. v.], the apostle of temperance. Nano was educated at home, and afterwards at Paris, where a glimpse, early one morning on her return from a ball, of some poor people waiting outside a church door in order to attend mass is said to have given a serious turn to her thoughts.

She returned to Ireland about 1750, determined to devote herself to the poor of her own country; but, deterred by the penal laws, she went back to France with the intention of entering a convent. But again she was driven home by a sense of her vocation. Her father was dead, but she remained in Dublin with her mother and sister until their death forced her to take up her residence with her brother in Cork. There the poor Catholic population was destitute of all means of education. With her own fortune, and afterwards with the support of some members of her family, she secretly started a poor school for catholic girls. She also visited the sick, and at her own expense established an asylum for aged females, which still exists. The narrowness of her own resources subsequently led her to charge fees at her school, and she herself collected them. But her health was bad, and, finding that her own energies were unequal to the task of carrying on the school, she determined to put it under the care of a religious community—a dangerous expedient in face of the stringency of the penal laws, which proscribed all religious communities. Four young ladies entered a convent of the Ursuline nuns in Paris to prepare themselves to undertake Miss Nagle's work, and after a period of training they reached Cork in 1771 in the charge of Dr. Francis Moylan [q. v.], subsequently bishop of the diocese, and occupied the convent founded by Miss Nagle. She did not become one of their number.

The order of Ursuline nuns is mainly occupied in the education of girls of the well-to-do classes, but Miss Nagle interested herself mainly in the poor. The corporation refrained from enforcing the laws against the new community in consideration of its beneficent objects. In further pursuit of her high aims Miss Nagle in 1775 laid the foundation of a new order, which was to devote itself exclusively (unlike the Ursulines) to the education of the female children of the poor. To this congregation she gave the name of the Order of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary. A convent and schools, specially erected by Miss Nagle, at her own expense, for the new order, were opened on Christmas day 1777, and the occasion was celebrated by a dinner to fifty beggars, on whom the foundress waited herself. The rules of the community were approved of by Pope Pius VI in 1791, and confirmed on 9 April 1805 by Pius VII