Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 44.djvu/124

 action with a large ship carrying troops. In the evening this ship had showed Spanish colours; but her shot, many of which were afterwards found on board the Leander, were of thirty-six pounds and had the French mark, so that Payne and his officers were convinced that she was a French ship of 74 or 80 guns. At the time it was believed that she was the Couronne of 80 guns; later on she was said to be the Pluton of 74. French writers make no mention of the circumstance; and as the two ships separated, both having sustained heavy loss, but without any definite result, it was never known in England what she was. Very possibly she was really a Spaniard. In recognition of his gallant conduct on this occasion Payne was moved into the 80-gun ship Princess Amelia, which he took to England at the peace.

The restless energy which had won him distinction in war carried him, in time of peace, into reckless dissipation. He attracted the notice of the Prince of Wales, who constituted him his private secretary, comptroller of the household, and personal friend. There is no doubt that he was the associate of the prince in his vices and his supporter in his baser intrigues. In 1788, when the prince claimed the regency during the king's insanity, Payne, then member of parliament for Huntingdon, urged his right in persistent and unscrupulous language; and on one occasion his manner of speaking of the queen is said to have drawn from Jane, duchess of Gordon [q. v.], the retort: ‘You little, insignificant, good-for-nothing, upstart, pert, chattering puppy, how dare you name your royal master's royal mother in that style!’ Towards the end of 1705 he made a tour through France and Italy, in company with Lord Northington. At Rome he received great civilities from the Cardinal York [see ].

In May 1793 Payne was appointed to the Russell of 74 guns, one of the Channel fleet under Lord Howe; and in her had a distinguished part in the battle of 1 June 1794, for which he received the gold medal. In December he was ordered to hoist a broad pennant on board the Jupiter, in command of the squadron appointed to bring over the Princess Caroline. It sailed from the Nore on 2 March 1796; the princess embarked at Cuxhaven on the 28th, and arrived at Gravesend on 4 April. Payne was at this time in bad health, but towards the end of the summer he was appointed to the Impetueux, an 80-gun ship formerly called the Amérique, and captured from the French on 1 June 1794, mainly by the Russell. During the summer of 1797 he was again ordered to hoist a broad pennant in command of a detached squadron, as also in March 1798 for a cruise in the Bay of Biscay. The inclement season and exposure brought on severe illness, which compelled him to resign the command. On 14 Feb. 1799 he was promoted to the rank of rear-admiral, and in August he was appointed treasurer of Greenwich Hospital, where he died on 17 Nov. 1803. On the 25th he was buried at St. Margaret's, Westminster. His portrait, by Hoppner, has been engraved.

[The Memoir in the Naval Chronicle (iii. 1) was presumably written by Clarke, and certainly under Clarke's supervision; it touches but lightly on the faults of his civil career, which were many, and dwells on his distinguished services in the navy. See also Gent. Mag. 1803 ii. 1187; Molloy's Court Life Below Stairs, vol. iv.] 

PAYNE, JOSEPH (1808–1876), first professor of education in England, was born of poor parents, on 2 March 1808, at Bury St. Edmunds. After receiving little besides an elementary education, he earned his own living as a boy by teaching and writing for the press, while continuing his studies in classics and English literature. In 1828 he was an assistant-master in a school in New Kent Road. Accidentally, he met with an account of Jacotot's system of teaching, made himself acquainted with the principles, and in 1830 wrote a pamphlet, ‘A compendious Exposition of Professor Jacotot's celebrated System of Education.’ Impressed by his account of Jacotot's system, Mrs. David Fletcher, a Camberwell lady, invited him to teach a small class, consisting of three children of her family and two others. His success was so marked that other parents wished to send their children, until the class became a school, known as the Denmark Hill Grammar School, with seventy or eighty boys. In 1831 Payne published a textbook, ‘Universal Instruction. Epitome Historiæ Sacræ. Adapted by a literal translation to Jacotot's Method. With a synopsis of the plan to be pursued in applying that method to the acquisition of Latin.’ Jacotot himself acknowledged the value of Payne's discipleship (Works of Joseph Payne, ii. 158). Throughout Payne's teaching life he taught in the spirit of Jacotot's methods, though circumstances rendered literal adherence sometimes impossible. A favourite maxim of his in teaching was ‘Lessoning, not Lecturing.’

In 1837 Payne married the daughter of the Rev. John Dyer, secretary of the Baptist Missionary Society. Miss Dyer was herself the head of a large school, which she continued after marriage. She had spent some years in the house of Mark Wilks of Paris, and had an unusual knowledge of French