eeeeee pelllew eeeeeee.

[quigonejinn]

The C. Northcote Parkinson biog of Pellew is an absolute delight, for the record. Pellew is delightful, and Parkinson is delightful, and

Edward underwent some schooling at Penzance, and later at the grammar schol at Truro, under Mr. Conon. He can have learnt little beyond reading and writing, and such tales as there are of his schooldays do not uggest that he ever had any taste for books. He eventually ran away to avoid a flogging. One of his schoolfellows has left the following description of him as a schoolboy: 'Pellew was one of the most daring of Conon's boys. I confess I rather stood in awe of him; though with his high spirit he had a very kind heart. Pellew would never suffer the weak to be trampled upon, but would fight their battles totis viribus. But I think he once thrashed me.' The unfortunate biographer, comparing the meagreness of information about Pellew in the Rev. R. Polwhele's Reminicences with the amount he was clearly in a position to give, cannot suppress a deep regret that Pellew did not go further and kill him outright. Polwhele, a contentious divine and the author of an enormous number of prolix and rambling works in verse and prose, rather boasts than imparts his knowledge of ellew's early life. As the suitor, at one time, of Constantia, one of Edward's sisters, he must have known more about him than most of his contemporaries at Turro grammar school. But there is exasperatingly little to be gained from his works

The short and sum of it was that the family of Pellew is old and established in Cornwall, that Pellew's grandfather was rich for a while from a tobacco plantation in Maryland, but that by the 1721 (36 years before E's birth), the prosperity was gone. E's father didn't marry until he was forty, and as a result, he left beyond a widow and six kids, four boys and two girls. The eldest of the brat pack was eleven, so the mother re-married, the kids got farmed out to relatives, and E was brought up by his grandmother in a "cottage" as Parkinson puts it. There wasn't a lot of money, and what little there was went to getting E's older brother, Samuel, (E was #2, three years behind and eight years old when his father died) training as a surgeon.

However, the family was in good with the famous (Cornish) Navy family of the Boscawens AKA Earls of Falmouth, and Lord Falmouth gets third brother Eddie to get the boys into service. Our hero, at the age of 13 and a half, gets packed off a Captain's Servant to Old Dreadnaught's old bosun, Stott, now become captain. Adventures with fowl ensue.

The 18th-century English Navy was a profession open to talent, especially middle-class talent. Influence played its part, but the most important form of it was professional in character -- it was the influence of admirals rather than that of politicians. For rapid promotion it was probably better ot be the son of an admiral than the son of a duke. And this kind of nepotism often had excelltne results. But apart from being related to a flag-officer the best way to gain the benefit of influence was to deserve it. The most prevailing forms of influence were closely connected with merit. In war time, at least, lack of influence ashore never hindered any officer's promotion. Those men who remained midshipmen until they were grey-headed, or whose dotage found them in the rank of lieutenant, were not held back by lack of influence but by incomptence or drink. Influence could assist promotion but the lack of it could not hold back a man of real ability. Pellew had practically no influence in the Service, but he was in this respect mostly in the position of most of his brother officers. In so far as lack of influence could retard his rise in the ervice, it did; but his career well illustrates how soon a reputation for efficiency could overcome that difficulty. It would be a mistake to suppose that he started his naval career under peculiar difficulties of any kind. His social position was rather above than below the average. He was poor but only moderately so. He had little influence, but he was not altogether without it. The interest, in short, of his life is that he was typical of his profession in social origin, in education, and in character; typical of his century in his virtues and vices; superior to most of his contemporaries not by differing from them but by carrying their pecularia qualities to an extreme. His genius was not of an original sort. It was, rather, intensive. He didnot do the unexpected. But he did the obvious unexpecteldy well.

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/_oggy_/]

when i read that paragraph it irked me, but then when i thought about it, the "biographer" was kinda right, it is very strange that bush just gets to suddenly captain a 74, and not only command it under a commodore but gets to keep it afterwards. it works well for the storyline and you have to wonder if forester decided to not care about the real logistics of how naval commands are parcelled out.

i always thought that when they return from france bush was promoted to captain and got to skip commander (whic was possible, i think) because he was sent to the dockyard i think forest would have written "commander" since he would not have been referred to honorifically as "captain" since he wasn't on a ship (a fact forester was aware of), so i always thought he got right shoulder epulette rather than the left.

i forget who he was talking to about who he wanted his flag captain to be, but i love the line when HH requests bush and the guy says "we thought u'd say that."

i've chalked up bush's sudden jump from dock to 74 as a case of naval nepotism, but one the admiralty were okay with since they knew he was quality material, despite the missing foot.

[black-hound.livejournal.com]

i always thought that when they return from france bush was promoted to captain and got to skip commander (whic was possible, i think) because he was sent to the dockyard

Absolutely. The positions of Resident Commissioner at the dockyards were positions for captains, not commanders. They were basically given as rewards for service and as a safe place to finish out a career.

i've chalked up bush's sudden jump from dock to 74 as a case of naval nepotism, but one the admiralty were okay with since they knew he was quality material, despite the missing foot.

Naval nepotism for sure. I mean, the navy in that era was more merit based than the army, where commissions were bought and sold without any consideration as to actual military experience, but it still wasn't an open system by any stretch. Let's face it, this is the 18th century where patronage and influence determined where you went in life with some exception.

And clearly they thought Bush was competent enough or they wouldn't have left him in charge of the Nonsuch for a full year on his own while HH was recovering from the typhus.

[quigonejinn.livejournal.com]

got to skip commander (whic was possible, i think)

Totally. In fact, because he's the sneakiest bitch in the world, CSF has Bush explicitly raise the possibility in the first few pages of LtH:

Every lieutenant could at least dream, even lieutenants like Bush with no imagination at all. Promotion was at least theoretically possible; from the caterpillar stage of lieutenant one might progress to the butterfly stage of captain, sometimes even without a chrysalis period as commander.