Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Adamson, Thomas

561918Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 01 — Adamson, Thomas1885Arthur Henry Bullen

ADAMSON, THOMAS (fl. 1680), master gunner in King Charles II's train of artillery, published, in 1680, a treatise of Thomas Digges, entitled ‘England's Defence, a Treatise concerning Invasion.’ Thomas Digges (a son of Leonard Digges the elder) had been muster-master-general of Queen Elizabeth's forces in the Low Countries; and his treatise had been exhibited in writing to the Earl of Leicester shortly before the Spanish invasion in 1588. When the fear of a French invasion was imminent, Adamson edited this tract with additions of his own, giving an account of ‘such stores of war and other materials as are requisite for the defence of a fort, a train of artillery, and for a magazine belonging to a field army;’ adding also a list (1) of the ships of war, (2) of the governors of the garrisons of England, (3) of the lord lieutenants and high sheriffs of the counties adjacent to the coasts; and concluding his tract by a statement of the wages paid per month to the officers and seamen in the fleet.

[England's Defence, 1680, fol.]