Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 47.djvu/186

  of Negapatam and Trincomalee, and the five several actions with the Bailli de Suffren. After the peace the Burford returned to England, and Rainier was put on half-pay.

In 1790–1 he commanded the Monarch in the Channel, and early in 1793 commissioned the Suffolk of 74 guns, in which in the following year he went out to the East Indies as commodore and commander-in-chief, taking with him a large convoy, which arrived at Madras in November, without having touched anywhere on the voyage, a circumstance then considered extraordinary (, i. 336). On 1 June 1795 he was promoted to the rank of rear-admiral, and to that of vice-admiral on 14 Feb. 1799. He remained on the East India station as commander-in-chief till 1804, during which time he assisted at the reduction of Trincomalee in August 1795, and in February–March 1796 took possession of Amboyna and Banda Neira, with enormous booty, the admiral's share of which laid the foundation of a princely fortune. His principal duty, however, was to provide for the safety of the British settlements and the security of the British trade, a task for which his long experience of the East Indies pre-eminently fitted him. After his return to England and his retirement from active service, he continued to be consulted by the ministry on questions relating to the station.

In the Trafalgar promotion of 9 Nov. 1805 he was advanced to the rank of admiral, was returned to parliament in May 1807 as member for Sandwich, and died at his house in Great George Street, Westminster, on 7 April 1808, leaving by his will one-tenth of his property, proved at 250,000l., towards the reduction of the national debt. Rainier was not married. Rear-admiral John Spratt Rainier (d. 1836) and Captain Peter Rainier, C.B. (d. 1836), were his nephews; and others of the family, grand-nephews and great-grand-nephews, have been or still are in the navy. A portrait (1805) by Devis belonged to the Rev. W. S. Halliday. It has been engraved.



RAINOLDS. [See also .] 

RAINOLDS or REYNOLDS, JOHN (1549–1607), president of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, and dean of Lincoln, born at Pinhoe, near Exeter, ‘about Michaelmas Day,’ 1549, was fifth son of Richard Rainolds. His uncle, Thomas Rainolds, held the benefice of Pinhoe from 1530 to 1537, and was subsequently warden of Merton College, Oxford, and dean of Exeter. The family seems to have been comfortably settled at Pinhoe, and several of its members at various times held fellowships at Oxford. His brother [q. v.] is noticed separately. John appears to have entered originally at Merton, but on 29 April 1563 he was elected to a scholarship at Corpus, where two of his brothers, Hierome and Edmond, were already fellows. He became probationary fellow on 11 Oct. 1566, and full fellow two years subsequently. On 15 Oct. 1568 he graduated B.A., and it must have been about this time, though the exact date is uncertain (see, Hist. of C. C. C. pp. 147, 148), that he was assigned as tutor to Richard Hooker. He was appointed to what was at that time the important college office of Greek reader in 1572–3. According to Wood's account of him (Athenæ Oxon.), his ‘fame grew’ from this lecture, as Jewel's had previously done from the Latin lecture, and Hooker's subsequently did from the logic lecture in the same college. ‘The author that he read,’ says Wood, ‘was Aristotle, whose three incomparable books of rhetoric he illustrated with so excellent a commentary, so richly fraught with all polite literature, that, as well in the commentary as in the text, a man may find a golden river of things and words, which the prince of orators tells us of.’ There still exists in the Bodleian Library the copy of the rhetoric (Morel, Paris, 1562) from which Rainolds lectured. It is interleaved, and contains an introduction, synopsis, index, and copious notes, together with a beautiful prayer following the index (see Hist. of C. C. C. p. 158), all written out in a clear, round, and print-like hand. In 1578 he resigned the office of Greek reader, and was, in consequence, embroiled in a controversy regarding the appointment of his successor to that office, who was objected to on the ground of his extreme youth and insufficient position in the college [see, (d. 1614)]. This and other differences within the college during the stormy presidency of Dr. Cole [see, (d. 1600)] probably determined him at length to resign his fellowship in 1586, and to retire to Queen's College, where he lived, and seems to have taken part in the tuition, for many years.

Meanwhile Rainolds had been taking a prominent part and acquiring a considerable reputation in the wider field of the university. Thus, in 1576, he strongly remonstrated against the proposal of Leicester, the chancellor, that [q. v.], a Spanish preacher in London, who was suspected of popish leanings, should be allowed