Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 43.djvu/118

 1764, he protected the ruler of Tanjore, Tuljaji, against him. In spite of many representations from the nabob, Palk refused to sanction an attack on Tulja-ji; and when a dispute arose between the rulers of Tanjore and the Carnatic regarding the right of repairing the great embankment of the Kaveri river, Palk decided in favour of Tanjore. (For Palk's policy regarding Tanjore, see numerous letters in Appendix, Nos. vi. x. xii. xiii.).

In 1765 Robert, lord Clive [q. v.] obtained a grant from the moghul of the five districts known as the Northern Sircars for the Madras presidency. Colonel Calliaud was therefore sent up from Madras to take possession of them. But the nizam of the Deccan, to whom they had previously belonged, resented the transfer, and invaded the Carnatic with a large army. Palk, alarmed for Madras, hurriedly directed Calliaud to come to terms with the nizam, and on 12 Nov. 1766 a treaty was signed at Hyderabad, by which the company agreed to leave the sircar of Guntur in the hands of the nizam's brother, Basalut Jung, and to pay a tribute of eight lacs a year for the remaining territory. This treaty is reprobated by all historians as a grave act of pusillanimity. The worst article in the treaty, however, was that by which the English promised to give the nizam military assistance ‘to settle the affairs of his government in everything that is right and proper,’ a vague expression which involved the Madras government the following year in the nizam's attack on Hyder Ali, the sultan of Mysore. Palk resigned his governorship, and returned home in January 1767, and it would seem, from Hyder's own words (see, History of Mysoor), that this enterprise on the part of the English was really due to Mr. Bourchier, Palk's successor.

On his return to England Palk, who had accumulated a large fortune out in India, purchased Haldon House in Devonshire, the former seat of the Chudleigh family, which he greatly enlarged. His old friend, General Lawrence, resided with him, and on his death in 1775 left all his property to Palk's children. In return Palk set up a large monument to Lawrence's memory on Pen Hill, Devonshire. Palk, who took a great interest in political matters, was member for Ashburton, Devonshire, from 1767 to 1768, and from 1774 to 1787. On 19 June 1772 he was created a baronet. He was a tory in sentiment, but resented Lord North's act, passed in 1773, for the regulation of the East India Company, and took up an independent attitude on matters connected with India. The Warren Hastings correspondence in the British Museum contains a large number of letters written by Sir Robert Palk from 1769 to 1782 to Warren Hastings. They are mainly occupied with sketches of current events, but show that Palk strongly supported his friend's interests in parliament and at the East India House. Palk died at Haldon House in May 1798. Palk Strait, which separates Ceylon from India, was named after him.

He married, on 7 Feb. 1761, Anne, daughter of Arthur Vansittart, of Shottesbrook, Berkshire, by whom he had three daughters and one son, named Lawrence, after the family friend, General Lawrence. He was succeeded in the baronetcy by his son Lawrence (d. 1813), M.P. for Devonshire, and Sir Lawrence's grandson, also named Lawrence and for many years M.P., was created, 29 April 1880, Lord Haldon; he died 22 March 1883, and was succeeded by Lawrence Hesketh Palk, the second lord Haldon.

[Histories of India by Marshman and Mill; Wilks's Hist. of Mysoor; Orme's Mil. Trans. in Hindostan; R. O. Cambridge's Account of the War in India 1750–60, London 1761; Cornwallis Corresp.; Rous's Appendix; Hist. and Management of East India Company; Letters from East India Company's Servants; Warren Hastings Corresp.; Polwhele's Hist. of Devonshire; Gent. Mag. 1798, pt. i. p. 445; Betham's Baronetage of England; Burke's Peerage.]  PALLADIUS (fl. 431?), archdeacon and missionary to Ireland, is often confused with St. Patrick [q. v.] He was doubtless a native of a Greek city in Southern Gaul, and was thereby brought into relations with St. Germanus of Auxerre, with whom he is authoritatively associated. The doubtful tradition of his British origin rests on the authority of late writers, like Antonius Possevinus the jesuit, and a marginal note in a manuscript at Trinity College, Dublin, ‘Pell. Britann. genere.’ He is mainly known from a few references made to him by his contemporary, Prosper of Aquitaine. First, under A.D. 429, we are told that Agricola the Pelagian corrupted the churches of Britain by the poison of his doctrine, but that Pope Celestine was stirred up by the deacon Palladius to send Germanus, bishop of Auxerre, to displace the heretics, and direct the Britons to the catholic faith. Secondly, under 431, Palladius is said to have been sent ‘to the Scots that believe in Christ as their first Bishop, by the ordination of Pope Celestine,’ and the same act is referred to as a proof that ‘while the pope laboured to keep the Roman island catholic, he also made the barbarous island Christian, by ordaining a bishop for the Scots.’

The mission of Palladius is also referred to by Bede, by the ‘Old English Chronicle