Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 44.djvu/394

Percival tenacity changes of ministry might have taken place which might have compromised England's prestige abroad.

In person he was thin, pale, and short. The medal struck by the government after his murder has a good likeness of him on the obverse; and, though no portrait of him is said to have been painted from life, several pictures of fair authenticity are extant—one by Sir W. Beechey, engraved by W. Skelton, and published in 1813, and two by G. F. Joseph in the National Portrait Gallery and at Hampton Court respectively. A statue by Chantrey was erected in All Saints' Church, Northampton, and was removed in 1866 to the Northampton Museum. The Beechey portrait was also engraved by Picart for Jerdan's memoir of Perceval in Fisher's ‘National Portrait Gallery,’ vol. i., and by Joseph Brown for Walpole's ‘Life of Perceval.’

Perceval married, on 10 Aug. 1790, Jane, second daughter of Sir Thomas Spencer-Wilson, by whom he had six sons and six daughters. The fourth daughter, Isabella (d. 1886), married the Right Hon. Spencer Horatio Walpole, formerly home secretary; their son, Sir Spencer Walpole, K.C.B. (1839–1907), wrote a full biography of Perceval in 1874. Perceval's widow married, on 12 Jan. 1815, Lieutenant-colonel Sir Henry Carr, K.C.B., and died on 26 Jan. 1844.



PERCIVAL, JOHN (fl. 1550), Carthusian author, studied philosophy at both Oxford and Cambridge, and afterwards entered the Carthusian order. According to Theodore Petreius's ‘Bibliotheca Cartusiana’ (Cologne, 1609, p. 212), he became prior of the house of his order at Paris in 1550, and was held in much esteem for piety and erudition. He was author of ‘Compendium Divini Amoris,’ Paris, 1530, 8vo, and wrote a number of letters, which do not appear to have been printed.

Another (d. 1515?) took the degree of divinity at Oxford about 1501 (, Fasti, i. 6), and became shortly afterwards forty-seventh provincial of the Franciscans in England. He is said to have been buried in Christ Church, Newgate, before 1515, and was succeeded as provincial by [q. v.]



PERCIVAL, ROBERT (1765–1826), traveller and writer, was born in 1765, became a captain in the 18th Irish infantry regiment, and held this position until he embarked in 1795, in the fleet, commanded by Elphinstone, that was despatched for the conquest of the Cape of Good Hope, then held by the Dutch. Percival disembarked at the Cape, in Simon's Bay, and was entrusted by General Sir [q. v.] with the duty of attacking the Dutch in the defile of Muisenberg, and in the strong post of Wyneberg. He succeeded in both undertakings, and the Dutch fleet sent, under Admiral Lucas (August 1796), to the help of the colony was captured. Following up this victory, Percival was the first to enter Cape Town (16 Sept. 1796), and there he remained till 1797. On his return he published a narrative of his journey and a description of the country, under the title: ‘An Account of the Cape of Good Hope, containing an Historical View of its original Settlement by the Dutch, and a Sketch of its Geography, Productions, the Manners and Customs of its Inhabitants,’ &c., London, 1804. This was translated into French by J. F. Henry, Paris, 1806. Percival's work, though rather thin, is not uninteresting, and was warmly praised at the time. His criticisms of the Dutch settlers and especially of their cruelty to the natives, their laziness, inhospitality, and low civilisation, are severe. But he commends the Cape climate as the finest in the world, and advises the home government, who had just restored the province by the treaty of Amiens, to reoccupy it.

In 1797 he also visited Ceylon, where he speaks of residing three years, and of which he wrote and published a description: ‘An Account of Ceylon, with the Journal of an Embassy to the Court of Candy,’ London, 1803. In this he notices the effects of the Portuguese and Dutch rule, which looked (especially the former) as if it ‘tried to counteract as much as possible the natural advantages of the island.’ He gives various instances of Dutch cruelty and treachery,