Mrs. Fell from Boston prison, 3 Sept. 1658). On the 7th he was sentenced to have his right ear cut off. Contrary to law, this was done not in a public place, but in prison. After six weeks' confinement he was released on 7 Oct. He visited the islands of Nevis and Barbados, and sailed for England about April 1659. On the voyage he wrote, with Norton, ‘New England's Ensign,’ London, 1659, 4to.
He had corresponded with Margaret Fell [q. v.] for some time, and now made her acquaintance. In March 1661 he married, at Swarthmore Hall, Ulverston, her eldest daughter, Margaret. Settling in London, he carried on business as a West India merchant at the Bear and Fountain, Lothbury. His family lived at Mile End until he built a handsome house at Kingston, Surrey, converted later into a union-house, and since demolished. George Fox frequently visited Rous here, and the latter managed all the money matters of Mrs. Fox and the Fell sisters. He visited Barbados in 1671, and while on his homeward journey was taken prisoner by a Dutch privateer and carried to Spain, where he bought a ship to bring him home. In 1678 he took his wife on a visit to Barbados. He left the island, with the merchant fleet, about February 1695, and was lost at sea in a heavy storm. By his will (P. C. C., Irby, 103), dated 20 Oct. 1692, and proved 1695, Rous bequeathed his West Indian estates to his widow, and after her to his only surviving son, Nathaniel (1671–1717), who married Hannah, daughter of Caleb Woods of Guildford.
Rous wrote a few pamphlets in conjunction with others (Smith, Catalogue of Friends' Books, ii. 512); but it was less as a writer and preacher than as a man of wealth and practical judgment that he exercised an influence upon the early organisation of the Society of Friends.
[Webb's Fells of Swarthmore, passim; Besse's Sufferings, ii. 317, 331, 338, 352 (and pp. 187, 188, and 189 for his father, Thomas Rous); Fox's Journal, ed. 1891, ii. 131, 141, 145, 159, 206, 396, 404, 418, 440, 463, 489; Plymouth Colony Records, iii. 140; Bowden's Hist. of Friends in America, i. 98, 117, 138; Doyle's Engl. in America, ii. 137; Bishop's New England Judged, pp. 68, 71, 72, 91, 92, 179, 226; Whiting's Truth and Innocence Defended, an Answer to C. Mather, pp. 23, 26, 118, 150, 187; Neal's Hist. of New England, i. 297; Croese's Hist. of Quakers, bk. ii. p. 134; Sewel's Hist. of the Rise, &c., i. 254–6; Swarthmore MSS., Devonshire House, where many of his letters are preserved. Among the manuscripts of the Meeting for Sufferings at the same place is a letter, dated Barbados, 16 Sept. 1676, signed by Rous and others, to General William Stapelton, governor of the Leeward Islands, which asked for toleration for quakers, and accompanied a considerable parcel of the works of Fox, Mrs. Fell, Parnell, and others, for distribution among the governors of the West India and other islands.]
ROUSBY, CLARA MARION JESSIE (1852?–1879), actress, fourth daughter of Dr. Dowse, inspector-general of hospitals, was born in 1852, or perhaps two or three years earlier, at Parkhurst in the Isle of Wight. Her father was an Irishman, and her mother a Welshwoman. After Dr. Dowse's retirement he lived in Plymouth, where his daughter went much to the theatre, and where she met, and early in 1868 married, with Roman catholic rites, Mr. Wybert Rousby, a Jersey manager and actor of some repute in the provinces. Husband and wife were seen acting in Jersey by Mr. W. P. Frith, R.A., and recommended by him to Tom Taylor [q. v.], by whom they were induced to come to London. In Taylor's adaptation of ‘Le Roi s'amuse,’ entitled ‘The Fool's Revenge,’ they made at the Queen's Theatre, Long Acre, their first appearance in London on 19 Dec. 1869, Mrs. Rousby as Fiordelisa, and Mr. Rousby as Bertuccio (Triboulet). Mrs. Rousby's youth and good looks won speedy recognition, and she was immediately and generally known as ‘the beautiful Mrs. Rousby,’ obtaining considerable social popularity. Her artistic equipment scarcely extended beyond good looks and a musical voice, backed up by a pleasant girlishness and naturalness of style. On 22 Jan. 1870 she was at the Queen's the original Princess Elizabeth to the Courtenay of her husband in Taylor's historical adaptation from Mme. Birch-Pfeiffer, ‘'Twixt Axe and Crown.’ The gentle and graceful aspects of the character she fully realised, and she exhibited some power in the stronger scenes, without, however, showing the nobler aspects of the heroine Elizabeth's character. On 10 April 1871 she was, at the Queen's, Joan of Arc in Taylor's play so named. In this she looked very handsome in armour, and came on the stage on horseback. Her impersonation of the character was lacking in dignity. A scene in which she was shown tied to the stake, the faggots being lighted, caused by its painful realism much protest. On 13 Nov. 1873, at the Princess's, she was the first Griselda in Miss Braddon's play so called. On 23 Feb. 1874, at the same house, she was the original Mary Stuart to the John Knox of her husband, in W. G. Wills's ‘Mary Queen of Scots.’ At the Olympic, on 21 Feb. 1876, she reappeared as Mary Stuart in ‘The Gascon, or Love and
