Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 53.djvu/438

 Spruce published ‘Palmæ Amazonicæ’ in the ‘Journal of the Linnean Society’ for 1871, pp. 65–183; ‘The Hepatics of the Amazons and Andes,’ forming vol. xv. of the ‘Transactions of the Botanical Society of Edinburgh,’ 1884–5; ‘Voyage de Richard Spruce dans l'Amérique équatoriale pendant les années 1849–64,’ in the ‘Revue Bryologique,’ 1886, pp. 61–79; and the ‘Hepatics of St. Vincent and Dominica’ in the ‘Journal of the Linnean Society’ for 1894.

[Life by A. Gepp, Journal of Botany, 1894, pp. 50–3; Journal of the Royal Geographical Society, March 1894; Proceedings of the Linnean Society, 1893–4, p. 35.]

 SPRY, HENRY HARPUR (1804–1842), writer on India, born at Truro on 6 Jan. 1804, was son of Jeffery or Geoffry Spry (d. 1829) of the excise, by his wife Philadelphia, daughter of Joseph Knight of Bodrean, near Truro. Henry was educated as a surgeon, and entered the service of the East India Company, being appointed assistant surgeon on the Bengal staff on 10 April 1827. In 1841 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society. He was also a fellow of the Geographical Society, and a member of the Asiatic Society, besides being secretary of the Agricultural and Horticultural Society of India. He died at Fort William, Calcutta, on 4 Sept. 1842.

He was the author of: 1. ‘Modern India, with Illustrations of the Resources and Capabilities of Hindustan,’ London, 1837, 12mo. 2. ‘Suggestions for the Introduction of Useful and Ornamental Plants into India,’ Calcutta, 1841, 8vo.

[Boase and Courtney's Bibliotheca Cornubiensis, ii. 680; Gent. Mag. 1843, i. 555; Dodwell and Miles's Medical Officers of India, p. 56; Lady Holland's Memoirs of Sydney Smith, 1865, ii. 413.]

 SPRY, RICHARD (1715–1775), rear-admiral, second son of George Spry (1684–1730) of Place in Cornwall, by his wife Mary, daughter of Richard Bullock of Helston, was baptised at St. Anthony in 1715. He entered the navy in 1733 as a ‘volunteer per order’ on board the Exeter, and in the following year was appointed to the Swallow, in which he served for four years on the home station. He was afterwards for two years in the Canterbury, and passed his examination on 26 June 1740, being then, according to his certificate, ‘more than 22.’ On 27 Sept. he was promoted to be lieutenant of the Deptford Prize, a small vessel employed in cruising and convoy service in the chops of the Channel, till early in 1743, when he was appointed to the Superbe, which in October went out to the West Indies, bearing the broad pennant of Commodore (afterwards Admiral) Sir Charles Knowles [q. v.] On 21 Sept. 1744 he was promoted by Knowles to command the Comet bomb, and sent to Boston to refit. On 12 Feb. 1745, as he was approaching Antigua on his way back, he fell in with a large Spanish privateer, the Galga, to which, after a stubborn action, he was forced to strike. The Comet was so completely disabled that the Spaniard gave orders to remove her people and sink her; but before this could be done the approach of some ships which put to sea from English Harbour compelled the Galga to forsake her prize and to fly, taking off Spry, however, as a prisoner, and landing him two months later at Havana. There he was treated with civility. In June he was sent to Charlestown in a cartel, and in September he joined Rear-admiral Peter Warren [q. v.] at Louisbourg; by him he was promoted, on 23 Sept., to be captain of his flagship, the Superbe. Returning to England early in 1746, he was appointed to the Chester, in which Warren flew his flag till the end of the year, and Rear-admiral Chambers in the following summer. In November, still in the Chester, he went out to the East Indies with Boscawen, took part in the siege of Pondicherry [see, (1711–1761)], and returned to England in 1750.

In October 1753 Spry was appointed to the Garland, and in June 1754 to the Gibraltar, in which he went out to North America with Commodore Augustus (afterwards Viscount) Keppel [q. v.] He was sent home in the following spring, and was immediately appointed to the Fougueux, one of the squadron sent out to North America with Boscawen. In the winter he was left senior officer at Halifax, and through the summer of 1756 was with the squadron under Commodore Charles Holmes [q. v.], blockading Louisbourg. By the death of his elder brother, in 1756, he succeeded to the family estates in Cornwall. In January 1757 he was moved into the Orford, in which he served on the coast of North America under Vice-admiral Francis Holburne [q. v.], at the reduction of Louisbourg by Boscawen in 1758, and in the operations in the St. Lawrence under Vice-admiral (afterwards Sir) Charles Saunders [q. v.] in 1759. In 1760, and again in 1761, the Orford was one of the grand fleet in the Bay of Biscay under Boscawen or Hawke, and in November 1761 Spry was moved into the Mars, on the same station, till August 1762, when he went out as commodore and commander-in-chief on the coast of North