Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 45.djvu/177

 possibility of defence, he ordered the colours to be struck.

The court-martial which, on the return of the prisoners, examined into the affair rightly pronounced that the loss of the ship was due to Elton's confidence and neglect; but it further pronounced that after Elton's death Philipps had been guilty of neglect of duty, and sentenced him to be shot, adding, however, a recommendation to mercy. The lords justices, to whom it was referred, saw no reason for advising his majesty to grant it, and the sentence was carried out on the forecastle of the Princess Royal at Spithead, at 11 A.M. on 19 July 1745. It is difficult now to understand the grounds on which Philipps was condemned, for the ship was virtually lost before he succeeded to the command. The probable explanation seems to be that the government was thoroughly alarmed, and suspected Jacobite agency. But this was not mentioned at the court-martial, and there is no reason to suppose that Philipps had meddled with politics. He was married, but left no children. His widow married again, and a miniature of Philipps is still preserved by her descendants.

[Commission and Warrant Books, Minutes of Court-Martial, vol. xxviii., and other documents in the Public Record Office; information from the family.] 

PHILIPPS, ERASMUS (d. 1743), economic writer, was the eldest son of Sir John Philipps, of Picton Castle, Pembrokeshire, by his wife Mary, daughter and heiress of Anthony Smith, an East India merchant. His cousin, Katharine Shorter, was the first wife of Sir Robert Walpole. Matriculating at Pembroke College, Oxford, on 4 Aug. 1720, he left the university in the following year without graduating. He was entered as a student of Lincoln's Inn on 7 Aug. 1721, and succeeded to the baronetcy on the death of his father in 1736. He was M.P. for Haverfordwest from 8 Feb. 1726 until his death. He was accidentally drowned in the river Avon, near Bath, on 7 Oct. 1743. He was unmarried.

Philipps published: 1. ‘An Appeal to Common-sense; or, some Considerations offered to restore Publick Credit,’ 2 parts, London, 1720–21, 8vo. 2. ‘The State of the Nation in respect to her Commerce, Debts, and Money,’ London, 1725, 8vo; 2nd edit. 1726, 8vo; the same edition, but with new title-page, 1731, 8vo. 3. ‘The Creditor's Advocate and Debtor's Friend. Shewing how the Effects of the Debtor are spent in Law … that may be saved for the creditor,’ &c., London, 1731, 8vo. 4. ‘Miscellaneous works, consisting of Essays Political and Moral,’ London, 1751, 8vo. Extracts from the diary which he kept while a student at Oxford (1 Aug. 1720 to 24 Sept. 1721) are printed in ‘Notes and Queries’ (2nd ser. x. 365, 366, 443–5). An epitaph on him by Anna Williams is sometimes attributed to Dr. Johnson (Notes and Queries, 3rd ser. v. 254, and, Miscellanies).

[Gent. Mag. 1743, p. 554; Nicholas's County Families of Wales, pp. 298, 908; Lodge's Irish Peerage, vii. 100; Burke's Baronetage, p. 1129; Foster's Alumni Oxon. (1715–1886), p. 1107; Return of Members of Parliament, ii. 59, 70, 82, 95; Boswell's Life of Johnson, ed. Hill, i. 60, 203.] 

PHILIPPS, FABIAN (1601–1690), author, son of Andrew Philipps, was born at Prestbury, Gloucestershire, on 28 Sept. 1601. His father, who belonged to an old Herefordshire family, owned estates at Leominster. His mother, whose family, the Bagehots, had been settled at Prestbury for four hundred years, was heiress of one of her brothers. Philipps studied first at one of the inns of chancery, but afterwards migrated to the Middle Temple. He was also at Oxford for some time in 1641, ‘for the sake of the Bodleian Library.’ A zealous advocate of the king's prerogative, he spent much money in the publication of books in support of the royal cause. In 1641 he was appointed filazer of London, Middlesex, Cambridgeshire, and Huntingdonshire, in the court of common pleas. His claim to the emoluments of the office was disputed, and fourteen years later the case was still unsettled. Two days before Charles I's execution, Philipps wrote a ‘protestation,’ which he printed, and ‘caused to be put on all posts and in all common places’. It was published with the title ‘King Charles the First no man of Blood; but a Martyr for his People. Or, a sad and impartiall Enquiry whether the king or parliament began the Warre,’ &c., London, 1649, 4to. Another edition bore the title ‘Veritas Inconcussa,’ London, 1660, 8vo. On the suppression of the court of chancery in 1653, he published ‘Considerations against the dissolving and taking away the Court of Chancery and the Courts of Justice at Westminster,’ &c., for which he received the thanks of Lenthall. He wrote three works against the abolition of tenures by knight service, viz., ‘Tenenda non Tollenda, or the Necessity of preserving Tenures in Capite and by Knight Service,’ &c., London, 1660, 4to; ‘Ligeancia Lugens, or Loyaltie lamenting the many great Mischiefs and Inconveniences which will fatally and inevitably follow the taking away of the Royal Pour-