258 



Member of the Board of Trade, and he determined to enlist, if pos- 

 sible, his sympathy in the cause of the unfortunate Icelanders. He 

 wrote at length to Sir Joseph, and received an immediate answer, 

 with the assurance that he had succeeded in securing his most 

 zealous co-operation. On the same day that he received Mr. 

 Porter's communication. Sir Joseph Banks went to the Board of 

 Trade, and though at that period he was suffering greatly from 

 bodily infirmity, he did not cease to employ his high interest, until, 

 assisted by Mr. Porter, he had obtained the necessary licenses, which 

 were immediately transmitted to Copenhagen. 



Such conduct is equally honourable to the celebrated Baronet who 

 so long filled the office of President of the Royal Society, and to 

 the subject of this memoir. 



It is to be feared that Mr. Porter's excessive anxiety to fulfil his 

 arduous official duties led him to sacrifice his health when it needed 

 repose and relaxation. His sedentary life proved the precursor of 

 disease, which undermined his constitution, and after- a short illness 

 at Tunbridge Wells, to which place he had gone for his vacation, 

 he died on the 3rd of September last. Mr. Porter was married to 

 Sarah, daughter of Abraham Ricardo, Esq., and sister of Mr. David 

 Ricardo. 



Apart from his high private character, which was marked by a 

 simple and unselfish integrity, which made him respected and loved 

 by all within his influence, Mr. Porter will be long remembered as 

 having a very remarkable power of quickly acquiring information 

 on any given subject and making it completely his own ; not merely 

 compiling, but separating all the facts that were valuable out of the 

 accumulated mass, and exhibiting them in a clear and succinct 

 manner. This faculty also enabled him to condense an enormous 

 amount of information in tabular forms. 



Mr. Porter was a public servant of rare assiduity and zeal, and 

 one whose qualifications for his important office were of the very 

 highest order. The range of his commercial, statistical and poli- 

 tical economy knowledge was of vast extent, and the readiness and 

 precision with which he communicated it were extraordinary. 



The Rev. John Warren, A.M. was born at the Deanery, at 

 Bangor, in October 1796. He was the son of the Very Rev. John 

 Warren, Dean of Bangor. He was educated at Westminster School 

 and at Jesus College, Cambridge, of which he was Fellow and Tutor. 

 In 1818, when he took the Degree of A.B., he was Fifth Wrangler. 

 In 1825 and 1826 he served the office of Moderator and Examiner. 

 He married his cousin Caroline Elizabeth, daughter of Lieut.-Col. 

 Richard Warren. In 1830 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal 

 Society. His death occurred at Bangor on the 16th of August, 

 1852. 



In the year 1828 Mr. Warren published at Cambridge ' A Treatise 

 on the Geometrical Representation of the Square Roots of Negative 

 Quantities,' a subject which had previously attracted the attention of 



