Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 45.djvu/44

 navigable for ships of war from the city of Voronej to the Don. To 1710 Perry made surveys and engineering work about the river Don. After some delay, caused by the Turkish war of 1711, he received instructions to draw plans for making a canal between St. Petersburg and the Volga. He fixed a route, the works were begun, but Perry was now rendered desperate by the czar's continued refusal to reward his services. A final petition to Peter was followed by a quarrel, and Perry, afraid for his life, put himself under the protection of the English ambassador, Mr. Whitworth, and returned to England in 1712. During fourteen years' service in Russia, he only received one year's salary. In 1716 he brought out an interesting work on the condition of Russia, entitled ‘State of Russia under the present Tsar.’ It contains a full account of the personal annoyances suffered by Perry during his stay in Russia.

In 1714, tenders being invited to stop the breach in the Thames embankment at Dagenham, Perry offered to do the work for 25,000l. The contract was, however, given to William Boswell, who asked only 16,300l. Boswell having found his task impossible, the work was entrusted to Perry in 1715. He completed it successfully in five years' time; but the expenses so far exceeded anticipation that, though an extra sum of 15,000l. was granted to him by parliament, and a sum of 1,000l. presented to him by local gentry, Perry gained no profit by the transaction. He published thereof in ‘An Account of the Stopping of Dagenham Breach’ (1721). In 1724 Perry was appointed engineer to the proposed new harbour works at Rye. He subsequently settled in Lincolnshire, and was elected a member of the Antiquarian Society at Spalding on 16 April 1730. He died at Spalding, while acting as engineer to a company formed for draining the Lincolnshire fens, in February 1732.

[Perry's works; Report of Lawsuits relating to Dagenham Breach Works, John Perry, Appellant, and William Boswell, Respondent; Nichols's Lit. Anecd. i. 115, vi. 104; Smiles's Lives of the Engineers, i. 73–82.]  PERRY, SAMPSON (1747–1823), publicist, was born at Aston, Birmingham, in 1747, and was brought up to the medical profession. While acting as surgeon, with the rank of captain, to the Middlesex militia, he published in 1785 ‘A Disquisition on the Stone and Gravel,’ and in 1786 a ‘Treatise on Lues Gonorrhœa.’ In 1789 he started or revived the ‘Argus,’ a violent opposition daily paper. In 1791 he was twice sentenced to six months' imprisonment for libels respectively on John Walter of the ‘Times,’ and on Lady Fitzgibbon, wife of the Irish lord chancellor. He edited his paper from prison during 1791. He was also fined 100l. for accusing Pitt's agent of keeping back Spanish news for stockjobbing purposes, and was convicted of a libel on the House of Commons, which, he alleged, did not really represent the country. To avoid imprisonment for this last offence he fled, in January 1793, to Paris, where on a previous visit he had made, through Thomas Paine, the acquaintance of Condorcet, Pétion, Brissot, Dumouriez, and Santerre. A reward of 100l. was offered by the British government for his apprehension. He joined the British revolutionary club, gave evidence at Marat's trial respecting the attempted suicide of a young Englishman named Johnson, was arrested with the other English residents in August 1793, and spent fourteen months in Paris prisons. Hérault de Séchelles summoned him, on the trial of the Dantonists, to testify to the innocence of his negotiations with the English whigs, but the trial was cut short without witnesses for the defence being heard. On his release at the close of 1794 Perry returned to London, surrendered on his outlawry, and was imprisoned in Newgate till the change of ministry in 1801. While in Newgate he published ‘Oppression: Appeal of Captain Perry to the People of England’ (1795), ‘Argus Miscellany’ (1796), ‘Historical Sketch of the French Revolution’ (1796), and ‘Origin of Government’ (1797). On his liberation he edited the ‘Statesman,’ and after 1809 had cross suits for libel with Lewis Goldsmith [q. v.], being awarded only a farthing damages. At the close of his life he was in pecuniary straits, and was an insolvent debtor, but was on the point of being discharged in 1823 when he died of heart disease. Twice married, he left a widow and family.

[Gent. Mag. 1823, pt. ii. p. 280; New Annual Register, 1791 p. 16, 1792 p. 38; Morning Chronicle, 25 July 1823; Ann. Biogr. 1824 contains fabulous account of his escape from guillotine; Andrews's British Journalism; Alger's Englishmen in French Revolution; Athenæum, 25 Aug. and 1 Sept. 1894.]  PERRY, STEPHEN JOSEPH (1833–1889), astronomer, born in London on 26 Aug. 1833, was son of Stephen Perry, steel-pen manufacturer in Red Lion Square. His mother died when he was seven. At nine he was sent to school at Gifford Hall, whence, after a year and a half, he was transferred to Douay College in France. During his seven years' course there a voca-