Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 44.djvu/99

 on the government, and to free them from the oppression of the now fugitive earls; but Paulet knew nothing of the country and would not listen to advice. O'Dogherty took the opportunity of putting some armed men on Tory island, but this seems to have been done with the consent of the few inhabitants. Sir Richard Hansard, who commanded at Lifford, says that Sir Cahir O'Dogherty left Burt Castle, on Lough Swilly, at the end of October to superintend the felling of timber for building; that this gave rise to a report that he was in rebellion; and that he then began to arm about seventy followers, refusing all recruits from outside his own district. Paulet made an unsuccessful attempt to seize Burt in the chief's absence, and reported all to Chichester. O'Dogherty remonstrated in a temperate letter, and subscribed himself 'Your loving friend.' Paulet falsely denied, and in very strong language, that he had ever intended to surprise Burt, and accused Sir Cahir of treason. O'Dogherty went to Dublin early in December and made his excuses to Chichester, who accepted them, but without much confidence. On 18 April the privy council ordered him to be fully restored to such of his ancestral lands as were still withheld, but this order did not reach the Irish government until he was actually in rebellion.

It has been usually said that O'Dogherty's fatal plunge into open rebellion was caused by Paulet's insults. The 'Four Masters' add, and the statement has been often repeated, that he struck the Irish chieftain; but this is not mentioned in the 'State Papers,' nor by Docwra. O'Dogherty himself said nothing about it to Captain Harte when he was making excuses for his seizure of Culmore, and the Irish authorities are divided. Revenge may have been O'Dogherty's main object, but Paulet's carelessness invited attack. Chichester warned him repeatedly to post regular sentries and keep good watch; but he neglected to do so, though he had from the first maintained that his Irish neighbours could not be trusted. His own men hated him for his ill-temper, and despised him for his incompetence. On the night of Monday, 18 April 1608, O'Dogherty, at the head of fewer than a hundred men, seized the outpost at Culmore by a treacherous stratagem, and surprised Derry itself an hour before daybreak. Paulet was killed, and the infant city was sacked and burned. Sir Josias Bodley [q. v.], who, however, was not present, reported that Paulet fell fighting valiantly; but the English government spoke of his cowardice, and said that he must have perished by the executioner had he escaped the sword. Devonshire's opinion that a man of war was not needed at Derry had at least been falsified. Paulet had been fully warned by Hansard, who held his own against the rebels at Lifford.

The peerages say Paulet died unmarried; but it appears from the 'State Papers' that his wife was with him at Derry, and the contemporary tract 'Newes from Ireland concerning the late treacherous Action' (London, 1608) says he had children there also. Lady Paulet suffered only a short imprisonment with the O'Dogherties; but her husband's death left her in great poverty, which was partly relieved out of the Tyrone forfeitures. She was alive in 1617.

[Cal.of Irish State Papers, 1606-17; Annals of Ireland, by the Four Masters, ed. O'Donovan; Sir Henry Docwra's Narration of the Services done by the Army employed to Lough Foyle, 1614, ed. O'Donovan (Celtic Soc. Miscellany, 1849); Gerald Geoghegan's notice of the early settlement of Londonderry in Kilkenny Archaeological Society's Journal, new ser. vols.iv. v.; O'Sullivan-Beare's Hist. Catholicae Iberniae Compendium, tom. iv. lib. i. cap. 5 ; Newes from. Ireland concerning the late treacherous Action, London, 1608; Collins's Peerage, ed. Brydges, vol. ii.; Meehan's Fate and Fortunes of Tyrone and Tyrconnell ; Gardiner's History of England, i. 420, 421, 426; see art. .]  PAULET or POWLETT, HARRY, sixth (1719–1794), admiral, second son of Harry Paulet, fourth duke of Bolton, and nephew of Charles Paulet, third duke of Bolton [q. v.], was born in 1719, and in August 1733 entered the navy as a scholar in the academy in Portsmouth Dockyard. On 9 March 1739 he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant, and on 15 July 1740 to be captain of the Port Mahon attached to the fleet off Cadiz, under Rear-admiral Nicholas Haddock [q. v.] By Haddock he was moved in July 1741 to the Oxford of 50 guns, which he was still commanding on 11 Feb. 1743–4 in the action off Toulon. In the subsequent courts-martial his evidence was strongly against Richard Lestock [q. v.]; he swore positively that Lestock had reefed topsails on the morning of the battle, and that he, following the vice-admiral's motions, had done so also. But while Powlett swore that the Oxford reefed topsails because the Neptune did, Stepney, the flag-captain, swore that the Neptune did nothing of the sort, and the Neptune's captains of the tops agreed with him.

In March 1745 Powlett was appointed to the Sandwich, guardship at Spithead, and a