Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 63.djvu/127

 was his Master Grinnidge, the travelling showman in the ‘Green Bushes.’ Scarcely less admired was his John Grumley in ‘Domestic Economy.’ He was excellent, too, in ‘Slasher and Crasher,’ as Blaise in Buckstone's ‘Victorine,’ as Medea in Mark Lemon's burlesque so named, as Watchful Waxend in ‘My Poll and my Partner,’ and several parts in which he replaced John Reeve. At the last performance at the old Adelphi (2 June 1858) he played Mr. Osnaburg in ‘Welcome, Little Stranger.’ Soon after the opening of the new house, in 1859, he appeared for a few nights. At the end of March his engagement finished, and he left the house and was not again seen on the stage. Towards the close of 1859 he took refuge from ill-health, worries domestic and financial, and legal proceedings at Boulogne, where he died on 21 Dec. He was buried in Brompton cemetery.

In his best days Wright was an excellent low comedian; Macready pronounced him the best he had seen. He took unpardonable liberties with a public that laughed at, pardoned, petted, and spoilt him. He often did not know his part and resorted to gagging. On occasion he could be indescribably and repulsively coarse. Some of his performances had remarkable breadth of humour. He inherited the method and traditions of Reeve and to some extent those of Liston. At his death many of his characters came into the hands of John Lawrence Toole.

A portrait of Wright as Marmaduke Magog from a painting by Crabb (see Cat. Third Loan Exhib. No. 582) is given in the ‘Theatrical Times,’ i. 225; one as Tittlebat Titmouse, engraved by Holl from a drawing by E. Walker, appears in Cumberland's edition of ‘Ten Thousand a Year.’



WRIGHT, FORTUNATUS (d. 1757), merchant and privateer, of a Cheshire family, son of John Wright, master-mariner and shipowner of Liverpool (d. 1717), seems to have served in early life on board merchant ships or privateers, and later on to have been in business in Liverpool. Owing to some lawsuit or political entanglement, the details of which are unknown, he left Liverpool in 1741 with his wife and family, went to Italy, and finally settled at Leghorn as a merchant, probably making occasional voyages. Whether he was the Captain Wright who commanded the Swallow, trading from Lisbon to London, which was captured by a Spanish ship in the Soundings on 18 Jan. 1743–4 (Gent. Mag. 1744, p. 260), must remain doubtful; but the association with Captain Hutchinson makes it probable. In 1746 he commanded the privateer Fame, a brigantine fitted out by the merchants of Leghorn, making a large number of prizes, the value of which was greatly exaggerated by common report. It was said that they were worth 400,000l., his share of which would have made Wright a rich man, and this he never was. (1715–1801) [q. v.], in his treatise on seamanship, speaks of Wright as a master of the art, and describes his method of cruising in the fairway of the Levant, which, mutatis mutandis, was very exactly copied more than a hundred years later by Captain Semmes of the Alabama on the coast of Brazil. On 19 Dec. 1746 the Fame captured a French ship with the Prince of Campo Florida's baggage on board, and sent her into Leghorn. In some way she had a pass from the king of England, but she was not named in it, and Wright maintained that it was a good capture, and refused to restore her on the representation of the consul. Eventually, on the suggestion of (Sir) [q. v.], the English minister at Florence, the matter was referred to the naval commander-in-chief, who decided against Wright.

Early in 1747 complaints were made from the Ottoman Porte that English privateers had made prize of Turkish property on board French ships, and, specifically, that on 26 Feb. 1746–7 the Fame had so seized Turkish property on board the French ship Hermione. The English consul at Leghorn called on Wright to explain, which he did. The Hermione, he said, was a French ship, under French colours; she had made stout resistance and had been captured in fair fight; she had been legally condemned in the admiralty court, the ship and her cargo had been sold, and the money distributed. On this the Turkey Company procured an order from the home government to the effect that Turkish property was not prize, even on board a French vessel, and this order, dated 30 March 1747, was sent out to the Mediterranean, where Wright urged that it could not be retrospective, and positively refused to refund. Another order was then sent out