Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 60.djvu/136

 Weddell had no previous experience as a sealer, it appears to have been sufficiently successful to enable him to buy a share in the brig, and to be entrusted with the command for a second voyage, in company with the cutter Beaufoy of London, of 65 tons, also put under his orders. With these two small vessels, which sailed from the Downs on 17 Sept. 1822, Weddell, in his search for fur-seals, examined the Falkland Islands, Cape Horn, and its neighbourhood, South Shetlands, South Georgia, the South Orkneys, which he had discovered in his former voyage; and finding the sea open, pushed on to the southward as far as latitude 74° 15′, which he reached on 20 Feb. 1823. The sea was still 'perfectly clear of field ice;' but the wind was blowing fresh from south, and the lateness of the season compelled him to take advantage of it for returning. Of course, too, the fact that the primary object of the voyage was trade, not discovery, had an important weight. Weddell returned to England in July 1824, and in the following year published 'A Voyage towards the South Pole performed in the years 1822–24' (1825, 8vo; 2nd ed. 1827), to which, in the second edition he added some 'Observations on the probability of reaching the South Pole,' and 'An Account of a Second Voyage performed by the Beaufoy to the same seas.' The work is interesting not only as the record of a voyage to what was then and for long after the highest southern latitude reached, but also as giving a survey of the South Shetlands, where many of the names—as 'Boyd's Straits,' 'Duff's Straits,' 'Sartorius Island'—recall the names of the captains with whom Weddell had served.

Of the later years of Weddell's life there is no clear account. It appears from the letter of Sartorius already quoted that he was abroad from 1831 to 1833, possibly in command of a merchant ship. His trading ventures had not been successful, and he is said to have been in very straitened circumstances. He died, unmarried, in Norfolk Street, Strand, on 9 Sept. 1834.

A miniature is in the possession of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society; it was presented by Mr. John Allen Brown, whose father, John Brown, author of 'The North-West Passage and the Search for Sir John Franklin,' 1858, presented, in 1839, a life-size copy of it to the Royal Geographical Society.

 WEDDELL, JOHN (1583–1642), sea-captain, born in 1583, was, in 1617, master's mate of the East India Company's ship Dragon; and in December was promoted to command the Lion. In April 1621 he sailed from England as captain of the Jonas, with three other ships under his orders. At the Cape of Good Hope he was joined by two others, which he also took under his command and went on to Surat. Thence he was sent by the company's agent to Gombroon, where the shah called on the English to assist him against the Portuguese. The English were, or pretended to be, unwilling; but on the shah insisting, with a threat that he would treat them as enemies and sack their factory, they yielded, and the more readily as they learned that the Portuguese ships at Ormuz were intended to act against the English. The ships under Weddell were accordingly sent to co-operate with the Persians, and after taking possession of the island of Kishm, attacked Ormuz, where they landed on 9 Feb. 1622. The Persians were numerous but inefficient, and the brunt of the work fell on the English, who blockaded the place by sea, and on shore acted as engineers and artillerymen. After holding out bravely for ten weeks, the Portuguese surrendered expressly to the English, and—to the number of 2,500—were sent to Goa. The town was sacked, but most of the booty fell to the Persians; the English share of the plunder was put on board the Whale, which, with her precious cargo, was utterly lost on the bar outside Surat; and thus, in direct gain, neither the company nor the company's servants were much the richer for the capture. This was necessarily inquired into when the Duke of Buckingham claimed a tenth of the spoil, as lord high admiral, and on 6 Aug. 1623 the governor reported to the court of directors that he had 'received from Weddell good satisfaction' as to the matter; that they had been obliged to aid the Persians, for otherwise 'the company's goods and servants ashore had been in danger;' and that they had 'mollified many rigorous courses intended against the Portugals, and lent them their own ships to carry them to a place of safety.' On 4 Dec. 1623 Weddell, then described as 'of Ratcliffe, in Middlesex, gent., aged 40 or thereabouts,' was examined before the judge of the high court of admiralty, and gave a detailed account of his voyage and the plunder.

With the further dispute between Buckingham and the company he was not concerned, and on 28 March 1624 he sailed for India in command of the Royal James. He was again commander of the company's fleet