Editor has, through the kindness of the present Lord Rodney, had access to the records of his noble and gallant ancestor, as well as to a variety of letters and papers relating to his services; and having, moreover, become possessed of a series of the Admiral's private correspondence with his family*, he was induced to venture upon a task which would at the same time afford himself occupation and amusement, and, he trusted, prove a source of gratification to his friends, and possibly to those of his countrymen (of whom there must ever be a numerous class) who take an interest in the biography of England's distinguished worthies. In thus offering an explanation of his inducement to commence the undertaking, the Editor ought to observe, that it is not from these sources alone he has acquired the new and interesting private information of which he has availed himself. To Viscount Melville and the Lords Commis * In consequence of the death of Henrietta, widow of Admiral Lord Rodney, February, 1829. sioners of the Admiralty he has been indebted for the privilege of inspecting and copying whatever documents he considered useful or important; and he cannot let this opportunity escape without a public expression of his acknowledgments to Henry Bedford and John Rowse, Esqs., whose situation in the Record Office of that establishment enabled them to afford additional facilities for reference, and who at all times most assiduously and attentively lent their assistance to the completion of his object. And to the zealous kindness of Sir Gilbert Blane the Editor feels himself under particular obligations for the many personal observations, hints, and reminiscences with which he has from time to time favoured him, and which are the more valuable as proceeding from an individual who enjoyed so large a share of the noble Admiral's confidence and regard, and who was an eye-witness to, and a sharer in, all his later triumphs. LIFE OF LORD RODNEY. FORTES CREANTUR FORTIBUS ET BONIS, IT would be foreign to the design of this Work to discuss the theory, or to analyse the principle of the foregoing lines of the ancient poet. With regard to animals, it is incontestibly true; and it may be fairly assumed to be equally so in the instance of the late Admiral Lord Rodney, whose glorious actions in his country's service, during a great part of the last century, afforded the clearest proof that he had not degenerated from the gallant spirit of his progenitors, one of whom, Sir Richard * Non generant Aquila Columbas' has been the motto of the Rodneys from time immemorial, altered from, but retaining the sense of, the two concluding lines of the ode. VOL. I. B Rodeney, Knt., fell at Acre, fighting under the banners of King Richard the First, in Palestine; and two others, Sir Richard, and a son of the same name, were slain at Hereford, in the year 1234, in a fierce encounter with Leolin, or Lewellen, Prince of Wales. In the several very brief and scanty notices. hitherto published of this great naval commander, it has been simply stated that he was the son of Henry Rodney, Esq., of Waltonupon-Thames, no allusion whatever having been made to the antiquity of his family, which, however, can distinctly trace its leagine to the time of Henry the Third, and even to that of the Empress Maud, seven hundred years back, during five centuries and a half of which the inheritance of the estates of Stoke Rodney, &c., in Somersetshire, descended in a direct male line from father to son. This male line terminated in Sir Edward Rodney, Knt., who lived in the reigns of the two Charleses, and suffered imprisonment during the civil wars, on account of his adherence to the royal cause; and whose son, George, dying at the age of twenty-two, the estates descended on his demise to his daughters, and |