Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 53.djvu/211

 Shower [q. v.], were found guilty of serious misdemeanour on 2 July. Such, however, were ‘the lenity of the government and his Grace of Canterbury's moderation in interceding for the delinquents,’ that they were released on bail in the following August. Snatt continued to live in London, where he died in reduced circumstances on 30 Nov. 1721, a ‘true confessor’ of his ‘distressed and afflicted church.’

[Foster's Alumni Oxon. 1500–1714; Hist. Reg. 1721, Chron. Diary, p. 44; Evelyn's Diary, iii. 350; Calamy's Life, i. 382; A Letter to the Three Absolvers, 1696, folio; Luttrell's Brief Hist. Relation, iv. 40, 45, 75, 80; Macaulay's History; Lathbury's Hist. of the Nonjurors, pp. 168 sq.]

 SNELL, HANNAH (1723–1792), ‘female soldier,’ according to the ‘narrative’ published in 1750 (attested in an affidavit, sworn by the heroine before the lord mayor, and prefixed to each copy of the book), was born in Fryer Street, Worcester, on St. George's day (23 April) 1723. Her father, William Snell, a hosier, was the son of a ‘Lieutenant Snell,’ alleged to have been at the taking of Namur and to have been killed at Malplaquet. In 1740 she lost father and mother, but found a home in London with a married sister, Susannah, the wife of James Gray, a carpenter, at Wapping. Three years later she was married by a Fleet parson to a Dutch seaman, named James Summs, who, after ill-treating her for seven months, disappeared. Having given birth to a child, Hannah borrowed a suit of her brother-in-law's clothes, and went in search of the missing husband (23 Nov. 1745). She reached Coventry, where, retaining her disguise, she enlisted in Captain Miller's company of Guise's regiment of foot, and marched with it to Carlisle. By incurring the hostility of her serjeant (the story continues), she was unjustly sentenced to receive six hundred, and actually did receive five hundred, lashes, after which she deserted and made her way to Portsmouth. There, in the capacity of a marine, she joined the sloop Swallow (Capt. Rosier), attached to Boscawen's fleet bound for the East Indies.

Regarded as a boy, she was attached as assistant steward and cook to the officers' mess. After a futile attempt on Mauritius, the fleet made for Fort St. David's on the coast of Coromandel, and the marines disembarked to strengthen the army besieging Araapong. Hannah was engaged in several skirmishes, and witnessed the blowing up of the enemy's magazine, which brought the siege to an end. Marching on Pondicherry, the troops were obliged to ford a river running breast high, in the face of the French batteries. She took her share in trench-making and at picket duty, but during an assault, after having fired thirty-seven rounds, she was severely wounded in the groin. Not caring to ask for the aid of the regimental surgeon, she secured the services and secrecy of a black woman, with whose help she extracted the bullet and cured the wound. Upon recovery, she was sent on board the Tartar pink, and served as a common sailor until turned over in the same capacity to the Eltham man-of-war. The smoothness of her chin earned her the sobriquet of Molly, but as her briskness increased her popularity, her shipmates rechristened her ‘hearty Jemmy,’ James Gray being the name in which she had entered the navy. At Lisbon she learned that her husband had been executed at Genoa. The alleged motive for her martial exploits was now removed, and when the Eltham was paid off at Gravesend in 1750, Hannah resumed her petticoats. She lost no time in getting her achievements put on record, the narrative being published by R. Walker in June 1750, under the title of ‘The Female Soldier: or the Surprising Adventures of Hannah Snell’ (London, 187 pp. sm. 4to; reprinted in ‘Women Adventurers,’ 1893). A ‘facetious’ poem appended to the work was reprinted in several newspapers. Abridgments appeared in the ‘Gentleman's Magazine’ (with a rough portrait) and the ‘Scots Magazine’ for July 1750. Her story was talked about, and the manager of the Royalty Theatre in Wellclose Square induced her to appear upon the stage in uniform, while in the autumn she appeared at Sadler's Wells and went through a number of military exercises in regimentals. Meanwhile, in response to a petition on 23 June 1750, the Duke of Cumberland put Hannah's name on the king's list for a pension of 30l. per annum; and she seems to have actually received an annuity as a Chelsea out-pensioner on account of the wounds received at Pondicherry (, Environs, ii. 164). Changing her vocation once more, she now took a public-house at Wapping, to which she endeavoured to attract customers by the sign of the ‘Female Warrior.’ In 1759 she married a carpenter named Samuel Eyles, and on his death she married thirdly, in 1772, Richard Habgood of Welford. The ‘Gentleman's Magazine’ records (in error) that she was found dead on a heath in Warwickshire on 10 Dec. 1779. In 1789 she became insane and was removed to Bethlehem Hospital,