Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 9.djvu/61

12 S. IX. JULY 16, 1921.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 43 wounded; the Dutch 1,160 and 6,000 prisoners. The work at Camperdown was eventually completed in August, 1799, by the dispatch of an expedition to Holland which captured the Texel and the twelve remaining first-class ships of the Dutch Fleet, without bloodshed. Meantime the imprisoned and degraded Nore mutineers, by an act of unusual wisdom, were released and pardoned by King George, and put in the fighting line. They found that,

Port rumours about Parker were numberless. Most of the authorities set down the years of his apparently overcrowded life as between 1767 and 1797, but the actual date of his birth is an inference, not a certainty; and he was, in more than one sense, generally "older than his years." It may be fairly

eventually her title was decided to be invalid. She fell into deep distress; became nearly sightless; and besought assistance from the charitable public. King William IV. gave her £10 at one time, and at another £20. In 1836, it is on record that the London magistracy provided her with a temporary refuge; and, later, there were other piteous appeals on her behalf, inside and outside Freemasons' Lodges. At 70 years of age, blind and friendless, it was stated that her devotion to the memory of Richard Parker was unquenched; "and she spoke of him with all the enthusiasm of youthful love, and still mourned what she regarded as his unjust fate."

IRISH FAMILY HISTORY. (See 12 S. ix. 5, and the references there given.) WITHERINGTON OF DUBLIN. WILLIAM WITHERINGTON, a woollen-draper in Graftoii Street, Dublin, died intestate assumed that he first entered service in the British Navy in a frigate, as an emergency midshipman, and he is said to have been Acting Lieutenant at the close of the Ameri- can War of Independence in 1782, when re- putedly barely over fifteen years of age. in ^^ Admin ted Feb 25 1802 * A considerable interval of still greater to hig gon Edward ? He marrie(I, about obscurity m his record followed. He is said 1?55 Catherine , elder dau . o f the Revd. to have returned to England with a con- ; Edward Fanning b y his wife Joanna French siderable share ot prize-money, which he ; (gee Fanning pe digree, 12 S. vii. 307); she spent in riotous living as was too often | died A i} . lg> 1797? in Agh street, Dublin ; the .seamen sway in all maritime countries >; [ her wm dated Feb 29 1794 wag ed to have considered himself ill-treated by his, Jul n 1797 f havi had iggue : _ * captain m the Navy; and to have dared to | Edward Witherington, born Jan. 23, send his commanding officer a challenge | 175g in DubHn , passed to u p wards of 20 years which tlie amazed captain promised to ; in the ^^ ^j sold J ut when ^ was answer with his cane. Then L among the [ Lieut .. Co lonel of the 9th Dragoons, for many stories once current in Stepney and 7 000 (English) about the year 1808. He mother ports of the Navy regardmg Richard gettled in Parig ftftep 1820 and married Parker it was said that he was chief mate . on board a merchant vessel trading to j * Administration of the estate of William Genoa and Leghorn, when he incited the crew to mutiny ; ' on account of the vileness of the provisions " ; that he was mate of the Lascelles, East Indiaman, where he got into trouble for '' excessive drinking " ; that he served aboard the Bull Dog sloop -of -war in the West Indies under Captain Edward Riou ; that he left to his hapless wife a boy some six years of age, who soon after the execution at the Nore was given a baby brother. It may be mentioned, also, that " Admiral Parker " as the crowd alongshore persistently called him for nearly half a century left a will bequeathing to his wife a small property upon which he had claims, at Exeter. She enjoyed this for a number of years, but Witherington, late of Grafton Street, in the City of Dublin, woollen-draper, a widower, deceased, intestate. Granted to Edward Witherington, the natural and lawful son of the deceased, dated the 25th day of February, 1802. t The last Will and Testament of Catherine Witherington, wife of William Witherington of the City of Dublin. My father the late Revd. Edward Fanning. My daughters Joanna, Har- riett and Catherine. To be bur. in the tomb with my father and children. My son Henry Witherington 1,000, and the house 69, Grafton Street, left him by the Revd. Edward Fanning. My niece Miss Elizabeth Groves, deceased. My son Edward Witherington, Captain in the 9th Dragoons. . . Dated the 29th day of February 1794. (Signed) CATHERINE WITHEBINOTON. Proved 17th of July, 1797, in the Prerogative Court, Dublin.