Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 44.djvu/365

 mendam. A fresh legal difficulty at once arose. The bishop of Chester was visitor of Manchester College, and the warden of Manchester was one of the persons to be visited. But the two offices were now united in one person, and he could not visit himself. After much unseemly contention between the warden and his tory clergy, the ministry of the day passed a measure appointing the king visitor whenever the wardenship should be held with the bishopric of Chester. But this arrangement failed to put an end to the dissensions in the chapter, and Peploe found it prudent to resign his post of warden in 1738, his son being appointed his successor. He now became legal visitor of the college, and, supported by the new warden, lost no time in reducing the refractory chapter to outward obedience.

With the diocesan clergy the bishop dealt much more successfully. In spite of a hot temper, he was by no means unpopular with them. During his episcopate he consecrated thirty-nine churches. He also erected two new galleries in the choir of his cathedral (, Chester, p. 99). In 1739 he was involved in a dispute with the mayor of Chester, who, being refused admission into the Abbey Court by the bishop when proclaiming war against Spain, ordered the gates to be broken down (, Chester, ii. 248). During the Jacobite rebellion of 1745–6 Peploe, staunch to his early principles, preached a sermon in his cathedral (13 Oct. 1745), afterwards published under the title ‘Popish Idolatry a strong Reason why Protestants should steadily oppose the present Rebellion.’ The bishop died at Chester on 21 Feb. 1752, and was buried on the 28th of the same month in the cathedral. The inscription on his monument shows that he was one of the few English bishops who never took a doctor's degree.

Peploe was a man of great determination, and totally regardless of public opinion in the discharge of his duties. A strong and unflinching partisan in politics, his whole life was passed in an atmosphere of strife. But he was by no means destitute of generous instincts; and his scheme of religious toleration embraced even the Roman catholics.

By his first wife, Ann, daughter of Thomas Browne, esq., of Shredicote, Staffordshire, he had one son and four daughters. She died on 25 Nov. 1705. On 8 Jan. 1712 he married Ann, daughter of his predecessor, Thomas Birch, vicar of Preston, by whom he had no surviving issue. Mrs. Peploe survived her husband. The bishop's only son, Samuel (1699–1781), commonly known as ‘Peploe Junior,’ was vicar of Preston 1726–43, prebendary of Chester 1727–81, vicar of Northenden 1727–81, archdeacon of Richmond 1729–81, warden of Manchester 1738–1781, vicar of Tattenhall 1743–81, and chancellor of Chester 1748–81. The family is now represented by the Webb-Peploes of Garnstone, Herefordshire (, Landed Gentry).

Peploe only published a few sermons and charges. His portrait was painted by Winstanley, and engraved by Faber (, Catalogue).

[Raines's Rectors of Manchester (Chetham Soc. Publ., vol. vi. new ser.); Hibbert-Ware's History of the Collegiate Church, Manchester; Smith's Records of the Parish Church of Preston; Halley's Lancashire: its Puritanism and Nonconformity; Cheshire Sheaf, vols. i. and ii.; Foster's Alumni Oxonienses, 1500–1714; Stubbs's Registrum; Act-books of the Diocese of Chester; information supplied by the Vicar of Dawley.]  PEPPERELL, WILLIAM (1696–1759), the ‘hero of Louisburg,’ was born at Kittery Point, Maine, on 27 June 1696. His father was a native of Tavistock, Devonshire, who emigrated to the Isle of Shoals, Massachusetts, in early life, and from a penniless fisherman became a great shipowner and merchant. He died in 1734. His mother was Margery Bray, whose parents emigrated to escape religious persecution. Taking a personal share in his father's timber and warehousing trade, he grew up robust and hardy. Accustomed from his infancy to the alarms of Indian warfare, he was bred to the use of arms and trained to face danger.

Pepperell and his brother rapidly improved their father's business. His earlier years were devoted to building vessels and planning voyages to Europe and the West Indies. But he was an active officer in the Maine militia, of which he was a colonel by 1722. He was by that time a foremost man in the colony, and soon was almost sole proprietor of the towns of Saco (which for a time was called Pepperellboro') and Scarboro', with large properties in Portsmouth, Hampton, and elsewhere. In 1727 he was first elected to the council of Massachusetts, and was annually re-elected till his death.

The New England colonies had been constantly annoyed by the depredations of the French, acting from their base at Louisburg, and in 1745 they decided to make an effort to capture the place. It was a bold enterprise for a force of colonial militia, aided by a few British ships, to attack one of the strongest fortresses in the world—the ‘Dunkirk of America.’ Pepperell was appointed to command