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

don't read if don't want to be slightly spoiled/possibly pissed off

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

HH confesses to pushing Sawyer down the hold. he also confesses to getting wellard in on the plot to kill sawyer while the spanish were trying to take the renown. the confessional letter (ficitonal of course concocted by the "biographer") was written later and is, in my opinion, very much out of character. HH is more a man to let his guilt fester and destroy him from within then to let it all out in a letter to his descendents.

Re: don't read if don't want to be slightly spoiled/possibly pissed off

[quigonejinn.livejournal.com]

AHAkjdfj. That is amazing. I had pretty much decided that book!HH did shove Sawyer down the stairs, but I had no notion at ALL of him engineering Sawyer's death. Ho ho ho. Parkinson is even more of a scheming bitch than I am. :D

Though. The notion of the confessional letter from HORNBLOWER s retarded, yeah.

Re: don't read if don't want to be slightly spoiled/possibly pissed off

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

the letter part of the letter about Sawyer's death was built off a little passage in LtH where Bush thinks about the oddness that the spanish tied buckland up and left him unharmed while they "savagely" cut sawyer's throat. in the letter HH admits that he thought the chaos was the perfect time to get rid of sawyer, and knew that wellard would help him. his reasoning was something along the lines that if sawyer reached shore alive (since he seemed to be recovering a bit) then the surviving lts would all be hung for mutiny, and he wasn't going to let that happen, so sawyer had to die (the letter is better worded than that, but essentially the gist). so he either suggested to wellard or ordered him (can't remember which) to go kill sawyer (i think, don't quote me). and later when bush reads about wellard drowning he puts the question HH again he he gets all weird again and won't give an opinion on wellard drowning.

My 0.2RMB

[quietcontrary.livejournal.com]

Hornblower pushing Sawyer? Maaaaybe. (Still so undecided!)

Hornblower cutting Sawyer's throat? I don't believe it. My reasons are probably biased, but I just can't see Hornblower being that cruel. CSF wrote "hell had no fire hot enough for the man - or woman - who would do such a thing" and I really don't believe he'd let his hero be capable of that.

Hornblower having something to do with Wellard drowning? About as likely as Bush running off with Mrs Mason. Imho. For one thing, HH and Wellard weren't even serving on the same ship when Wellard drowned, and two others drowned besides. Anyway, even allowing for the logistics, at a stretch HH might have caused the death of Sawyer but there is no way I could believe that HH would kill an innocent third party in such circumstances only to help hide his trail. I think Bush was so moved by the article because it brought back the memories of the mystery of the matter, not because he suspected foul play in Wellard's death.

Re: My 0.2RMB

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

oops, my prose may have been slightly misleading. hornblower had nothing to do with wellard drowning, it was an accident. bush used the incident (as they read it in the chronicles) as an excuse to ask hornblower again about the sawyer incident (something like "do you think he had anything to do with it?) and hornblower remains indifferent to wellard's death and does the stone-cold mask of indifference thing again.

and, according to the "letter" not written by forester but by the "biographer," hornblower didn't do the deed, he came up with it because he was convinced that all the lts would hang when they reached port, so he decided that sawyer had to be gotten rid of. he got wellard to do it, who (according to the "letter") didn't need much convincing after all the uncalled for beatings.

i'll believe that hornblower aided sawyer's falling down the hold, only because forester is so adament about relating his lack of facial expressions, but his death? i've never bought it, it's very out of character, and it's even more out of character than hornblower "writing" a confessional. and since forester is dead, we'll never really know will we?