PELLEW. 157 



48. EDWARD PELLEW. 



EDWARD PELLEW was born at Dover, England, April 19, 1757. He lost his 

 father in 1765 and at 11 years of age was, with his brothers, thrown upon the 

 world. 



" The resolute, active, and courageous character of the lads, however, brought 

 them well forward among their equals in age. At school Edward was especially 

 distinguished for fearlessness. Of this he gave a marked instance, when not yet 

 twelve, by entering a burning house where gunpowder was stored, which no other 

 of the bystanders would approach. Alone and with his own hands the lad brought 

 out the powder. A less commendable but very natural result of the same ener- 

 getic spirit was shown in the numerous righting matches in which he was engaged. 

 If flogged, he declared, he would run away; and as a decided taste for a seafaring 

 life had already manifested itself, his guardian thought better to embrace at once 

 the more favorable alternative and enter him regularly in the navy." (Mahan 1913.) 



On his first cruise in the Mediterranean, a midshipman was set ashore at 

 Marseilles on account of a quarrel with the commander of the ship, who was grossly 

 in the wrong. Pellew insisted on accompanying his messmate and at the age of 

 14 years had to find his way home. Assigned to the ship that was to take Bur- 

 goyne to America in 1775, he startled the general, who saw him standing on his 

 head on a yard-arm. He dived from a yard-arm of a fast-moving ship to save 

 a seaman who had fallen overboard and succeeded in rescuing him. 



Pellew saw active service on Lake Champlain in 1776, when the command of 

 the Carleton fell to him, and he fought with skill and pertinacity. On one occa- 

 sion the Carleton lay close to shore, so that the wind did not fill her jib. Pellew 

 sprang out on the bowsprit in the face of a hail of rifle bullets from shore to bear 

 the jib over. Returning to England, Pellew was made lieutenant and served again 

 under Captain Pownoll on the frigate Apollo. In a fight with the French frigate 

 Stanislas Pownoll was killed and the command fell on Pellew, who fought until 

 the enemy's ship went aground and claimed protection of the neutral flag. Later he 

 drove ashore and destroyed several French privateers and was made post captain. 

 Peace followed (1783-1793), and Pellew tried farming, but it was too slow for him. 

 For five years of this period he commanded frigates. He showed himself as active 

 as the youngest sailors among the yards and rigging. Once, dressed in full uniform 

 to attend a state dinner on shore, Pellew watched the crew swimming around the 

 ship while one of the ship's boys on deck called out to the bathers that he would 

 soon have a good swim too. "The sooner the better," said Pellew, coming behind 

 and tipping him overboard. Then he quickly saw that the lad could not swim, 

 so in he went himself, with all his fine clothes on, to rescue the boy. Pellew had 

 remarkable capacity in handling a ship; and this did not fail him in his first battle 

 as full-fledged commander of a frigate, the Nymphe. She came on the French 

 Cleopatrie, and, sailing alongside of her, engaged her in a duel. The French 

 frigate lost wheel and mizzenmast and, thus uncontrolled, ran straight into the 

 Nymphe. The British boarded and captured her. Pellew was knighted, and 

 his brother Israel, who had assisted him, was made post captain. In continuing 

 the war with France, Pellew repeatedly showed acts of personal bravery and bold 

 artifice, as when he personally saved the passengers and crew of a merchantman 

 who had gone on the shore at Plymouth, and when he sailed Into the French fleet 



