Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 2.djvu/377

 12 8. II. Nov. 4, 1916.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

371

-will attack battery No. 7 and 8 " ; " Mind en will attack the large battery, No. 4 " ; "' Heron, Mutine, Cordelia, and Britomart will consider it their first duty," &c. In his dispatch of Aug. 28, however, in the few cases where he speaks of individual ships, he uses the article ; it is always " the Prome- theus," " the Queen Charlotte," " the Impregnable." In some ' Observations ' printed on p. 430 of Osier's ' Life of Ex- mouth,' an officer who served on the Queen Charlotte speaks of " the Queen Charlotte " {or " the Charlotte "), and also of " Leander, Granicus, Glasgow, Severn, and Melampus, irigates." It looks as if in formal docu- ments it was then the custom with naval officers to use the definite article, but not necessarily in informal documents. I believe that historians and publishers of prints al- -ways used the definite article. Is there any rule in the matter ? G. E. P. A.

SIR PHILIP PERCEVAL, M.P. (11 S. i. 262, 372; 12 S. i. 250.)

AT the first and the third of these references, I expressed a desire to know whether any Sight could be thrown on the election for Newport, Cornwall, on May 10, 1647, of Sir Philip Perceval, as I could trace no Cornish or other special connexion of any kind to explain his choice for a Cornish borough. The account of him given in ' D.N.B.,' vol. xliv. pp. 373-4, affords no light on this head, not even mentioning the date when lie was returned, though there is a slight gleam in its showing that he threw in his lot with the moderate Presbyterians, and was at enmity with the Independents in the Long Parliament. I noted, however, at the last reference that

" he came in for Newport when an Edgcumbe <and that Edgcumbe a brother of the younger Piers and a nephew of Lady Denny of Trale*) went out " ;

.and I asked : "Is it possible that this supplies the link of connexion hitherto missing ? " That was drawing the bow at A venture, but thoxigh at the time I was not aware of the slightest evidence to support the guess the chance shot in some -degree may have come near to hitting the

To establish this idea, one has to cast the net wide ; and the first point of interest is

that a personal and direct association can be made out between Sir Philip Perceval and Sir Edward Denny of Tralee, beginning in apparent friendship and ending in personal enmity. According to the Historical Manu- scripts Commission's Report on the MSS. of the Earl of Egmont, one Thomas Bettes- worth, writing from Mallow on Feb. 2, 1634/5, to " Philip Percivall " in Dublin, observed :

" I have no news worthy your knowledge, but cannot let Sir Edward Denny go without a salutation. He has been snowbound here for some days, during which we have had an in- credible depth of snow and blustering winds." Vol. i. p. 81.

This indicates at the least a friendly interest as existing between the two men ; but on Aug. 5, 1639, Sir Edward Denny wrote to " Sir Philip Percivall " from " Traley," bitterly complaining of his

" carriage of a business so hardly against me in the Court of Wards, that you were pleased earnestly to express yourself to my prejudice, whereby no favour at all was extended to me,"

a charge which Perceval at once, but not conclusively repudiated (ibid., pp. 109-10).

For the purpose of my inquiry, I next come to the filling, in 1647, of the electoral vacancy for Newport, when, owing to the illustrious John Maynard having elected to sit for Totnes (for which borough also he had been originally sent to the Long Parliament) and the disabling of Richard Edgcumbe by the House of Commons on Feb. 9, 1646/7, Perceval and Nicholas Leach of the latter, a Cornish man, I should like to know more were returned to Parliament. Early in the year named Perceval was expecting to be brought in for some constituency, as is evidenced by a letter of his of March 23, 1646/7 (ibid., p. 376); but another, of May 4, written apparently from Dublin, repeats the idea expressed in the earlier that he was so much disliked by some and feared by others, " because he would not desert an oppressed friend, which troubles much some of them," that his election would be opposed (ibid., p. 398). Fifteen days later, however, he was returned without seeming difficulty for Newport, and six days afterwards he took his seat. His Parliamentary troubles, which were speedy and severe, need not here concern us, though the key to ^hem seems largely to lie in his own memorandum of July 17 :

" On May 25, I was admitted into the House of Commons, and twice voted for the disbanding of the army, of which notice was taken by divers who were of another mind " (ibid., p. 430) ;