Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 46.djvu/419

Pritchard Pacific Ocean, on 27 July 1824. Pritchard and his wife were welcomed on their arrival by the queen, Pomare, and he was shortly appointed British consul for the Georgian, Society, Navigator's, and Friendly Islands. On 21 Nov. 1836 the queen refused to admit to her dominions two French priests, Laval and Garret, from Gambia Island, and there followed a long quarrel with the French government, which ended in the islands being placed under French protection in 1842, and a temporary annexation by France in 1843. Pritchard advised the queen throughout this critical period, and helped to pay in 1838 an indemnity of two thousand Spanish dollars summarily demanded by the French admiral, Du Petit-Thouars. In 1841 he went to England to lay before the British government the case of the dispossessed queen, and to describe the outrages which the invaders inflicted upon British subjects ; but he returned in February 1843 without obtaining any genuine guarantee of security. On 5 March 1844 he was seized by the French authorities on the pretence that he encouraged disaffection among the natives. Captain Gordon, of H.M.S. Cormorant, procured his release, on condition that he should leave the islands and never return. He sailed in the Cormorant to Valparaiso, whence he reached London. The English government thereupon demanded of the French an apology and pecuniary reparation. Pritchard asserted that his property had suffered damage to the amount of 4,000l. Eventually, in the queen's speech of 1845 announcement was made that the difficulty had been satisfactorily adjusted. Pritchard subsequently lived in retirement in England, dying at Hove, near Brighton, in May 1883 in his eighty-seventh year. His widow and several children survived him. He published : 'The Missionary's Reward, or the Success of the Gospel in the South Pacific,' with an introduction by the Rev. J. A. James, 1844; and 'Queen Pomare and her Country,' 1878, 8vo, with an introduction by Henry Allon ; he also left in manuscript 'The Aggressions of the French at Tahiti and other Islands in the Pacific.' [Annual Reg. 1844, p. 260; Dumoulin et Desgraz, lies Täiti ; Brief Statement of the Aggressions of the French on Tahiti (London Missionary Society, 1883); private information.]  PRITCHARD, HANNAH (1711–1768), actress, whose maiden name was Vaughan, was born in 1711, and married in early life a poor actor named Pritchard. As Mrs. Pritchard she acted in 1733, at Fielding and Hippisley's booth, Bartholomew Fair, the part of Loveit in an opera called 'A Cure for Covetousness, or the Cheats of Scapin.' She sang with great effect 'Sweet, if you love me, smiling, turn.' A duet between her and an actor called Salway was very popular, and she was berhymed by a writer in the 'Daily Post,' who spoke of this as her first essay, and predicted for her 'a transportation to a brighter stage.' This was soon accomplished, since she appeared at the Haymarket on 26 Sept. 1733 as Nell in the 'Devil to Pay' of Coffey. She was one of the company known as the 'Comedians of his Majesty's Revels,' the more conspicuous members of which had seceded from Drury Lane. During her first season she was seen as Dorcas in the 'Mock Doctor,' Phillis (the country lass) in the 'Livery Rake Trapp'd, or the Disappointed Country Lass,' Ophelia, Edging in the 'Careless Husband,' Cleora in the 'Opera of Operas, or Tom Thumb the Great,' an alteration of Fielding's 'Tragedy of Tragedies,' Lappet in the 'Miser,' Phædra in 'Amphitryon,' Hob's Mother in 'Flora,' Sylvia in the 'Double Gallant,' Shepherdess in the 'Festival,' Peasant Woman in the 'Burgomaster Trick'd,' and Belina in Miller's 'Mother-in-Law.' Two or three of the last-named parts are original. Her appearance during her first season in so wide a range of parts seems to indicate more experience than she can be shown to possess. Two Miss Vaughans, who might have been her sisters, but neither of whom could have been herself, had previously been heard of. Returning with the companv to Drury Lane, she played there, 30 April 1734, Mrs. Fainall in the 'Way of the World.' At Drury Lane she remained until 1740-1, going in the summer of 1735 to the Haymarket, where she was Beatrice in the 'Anatomist,' Lady Townly, and the original Combrush in the 'Honest Yorkshireman.' At Drury Lane, meanwhile, she played a wide range of characters, chiefly, though not exclusively, comic. The most noteworthv of these are Lady Wouldbe in 'Volpone,' Mrs. Flareit in 'Love's Last Shift,' Lucy Lockit, Lady Haughty in the 'Silent Woman,' Doll Common, Mrs. Termagant in the 'Squire of Alsatia,' Pert, Mrs. Foresight, Berinthia in the 'Relapse,' Araminta, and afterwards Belinda, in the 'Old Bachelor,' Lady Anne, Duchess of York in 'King Richard III,' Angelica in 'Love for Love,' Lady Macduff, Anne Boleyn, Leonora in the 'Libertine,' Mrs. Sullen, Monimia, Desdemona, Rosalind, Viola in 'Twelfth Night,' and Nerissa in the 'Merchant of Venice.' A couple of original parts stand prominently out — Dorothea to the Maria of Mrs. Clive in Miller's 'Man of Taste,' 6 March 1735, and Peggy in Dodsley's 'King and the Miller of Mansfield,' 1 Feb. 1737. 