Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 57.djvu/252

  the autobiographies of her sons, Anthony and Thomas Adolphus Trollope; Jeaffreson's Novels and Novelists, ii. 396; Horne's Spirit of the Age, 1844, i. 240; Atlantic Monthly, December 1864; Allibone's Dict. of English Literature.]  TROLLOPE, HENRY (1756–1839), admiral, son of the Rev. John Trollope of Bucklebury in Berkshire, was born at Bucklebury on 20 April 1756. His grandfather, Henry Trollope of London, merchant, was a younger brother of Sir Thomas Trollope, fourth baronet, of Casewick, ancestor of the present Baron Kesteven, and grandfather of Thomas Anthony Trollope [see under ]. Henry Trollope entered the navy in April 1771 on board the Captain of 64 guns, going out to North America with the flag of Rear-admiral John Montagu [q. v.], and on her return in 1774 was again sent out to the same station in the Asia, with Captain George Vandeput [q. v.] He is said, apparently on his own authority, to have been present in the so-called battle of Lexington and at Bunker Hill (cf., iv. 61, 65, 75), presumably in the boats of the Asia, sent to cover the retreat from Lexington, or the landing of the troops for the attack on Bunker Hill. He was afterwards lent to the Kingfisher sloop for service on the coast of Virginia and in Hampton Roads, and, later on, at the siege of Boston. In 1777 he rejoined the Asia, and in her returned to England. On 25 April 1777 he was promoted to be lieutenant of the Bristol, in which he again went out to North America, and immediately after arrival at New York was detached, in command of her boats, to assist the army in its passage up the North River, in the attempt to join hands with Burgoyne. This it did not succeed in doing, and on its return to New York, Trollope rejoined the Bristol. In the spring of 1778 he returned to England in the Chatham, and was then, at his own request, appointed to command the Kite, a small cutter carrying ten four-pounders and fifty men, stationed in the Downs. His success during the following months was commensurate with his activity, which was very great. He kept constantly at sea, let no vessel pass without examination, made many captures of French ships, and ‘the neutrals that he detained, which were condemned for having French or Spanish property on board, were still more numerous.’ Admiral Buckle, who commanded in the Downs, is said to have told Trollope's old patron, Montagu, that ‘the Kite had brought in more than three times the number of prizes that had been made by all the other ships under his command.’ In March 1779 the Kite was sent to Portsmouth, and was then ordered to cruise off Portland, where, on the 30th, she engaged and drove off a large French privateer, so saving ‘a considerable body of defenceless British merchant ships which were in imminent danger of capture’ (Memorial). The number of merchant ships thus rescued is given as thirty. On the following day the Kite engaged and beat off a French brig of 18 guns, which, having lost heavily in killed and wounded, escaped to Havre, while the cutter, whose rigging was cut to pieces, went to Portsmouth. On the report of Sir Thomas Pye, then port-admiral, Trollope was promoted to the rank of commander on 16 April 1779. He remained, however, in the Kite, sometimes attached to the Channel fleet, as a despatch-boat, sometimes cruising alone on the coast of Ireland, or to the southward as far as Cadiz, and in the April of 1781 accompanying the fleet under vice-admiral Darby for the relief of Gibraltar.

The remarkable activity Trollope displayed in carrying despatches between the admiral and the admiralty was rewarded by his promotion to post rank on 4 June 1781, and his appointment to the Myrmidon of 20 guns, in which he was employed in the North Sea till March 1782. He was then appointed to the Rainbow, an old 44-gun ship, experimentally armed with carronades—light guns of large calibre, throwing large shot, but with a very short effective range. It was a disputed point whether such guns could be properly used as the main armament of a ship; and as Trollope was known to have paid great attention to the training of his men at the guns, he was specially selected to conduct this trial. The stress of the war rendered it difficult to get the ship manned, and it was not till the end of August that she sailed from the Nore. Meeting with bad weather in her passage down Channel, the great weight of her shot broke away the shot lockers and caused some delay at Plymouth; and thus she sailed by herself to join the squadron under Commodore Elliot, which had been sent to look out for a French convoy reported as ready to sail from St. Malo under the escort of the Hebe, a large new 38-gun frigate. Elliot had, however, missed this, and the Rainbow fell in with it off the Isle de Bas at daylight on 4 Sept. The Hebe endeavoured to escape, but a lucky shot from the Rainbow smashed her wheel, and the French captain, astounded, it was said, by the monstrous size of the shot, surrendered almost without resistance. He was deservedly broke by court-martial and sentenced to a long term of imprisonment