Exmouth

Exmouth, EDWARD PELLEW, VISCOUNT, an English admiral, was born at Dover, April 19, 1757. He entered the navy at the age of thirteen, and first attracted notice by his gallant conduct in the battle on Lake Champlain in 1776. In 1782 he attained the rank of post-captain. In 1793, having been appointed to the command of the Nymphe, a frigate of thirty-six guns, he encountered, and, after a hard-fought battle, captured La Cléopâtre, a superior French frigate. For this victory he was knighted; and in 1796, for acts of personal bravery, he was created a baronet. In 1798 he received the command of the Impétueuse, and was sent to the French coast, where many of his most brilliant actions took place. In 1804 he was appointed rear-admiral of the Blue, and commander-in-chief in India, from whose seas he drove the French cruisers; he was afterwards made commander-in-chief in the North Sea and in the Mediterranean. In 1814 Pellew was created Baron Exmouth of Canoteign, in Devonshire, with a pension of £2000 a year. In 1816 he was sent to Algiers, to enforce the terms of a treaty regarding the abolition of Christian slavery, which the Dey had violated. With a combined fleet of twenty-five English and Dutch vessels, he bombarded the city for nine hours, and inflicted such immense damage, destroying all the Algerine fleet and many of the public buildings, that the Dey consented to every demand. For this service he was raised to the rank of viscount. He died 23d January 1833. See his Life by Osler (1835).