fleet which sailed from Canton on 31 Jan. Off Pulo Aor, on 14 Feb., this fleet, consisting of sixteen Indiamen and eleven country ships, fell in with the French squadron under Admiral Linois. The Indian fleet numbered three more than Linois had been led to expect. He jumped to the conclusion that the three extra ships were men-of-war; and though he had with him a line-of-battle ship, three heavy frigates, and a brig, he did not venture to attack. The bold attitude which Dance assumed confirmed him in his error. Dance, with his fleet ranged in line of battle, stood on under easy sail, lay to for the night, and the next morning again stood on, always under easy sail. Linois then manœuvred to cut off some of the rearmost ships, on which Dance made the signal to tack towards the enemy and engage. Captain Timmins in the Royal George led, the Ganges and Dance's own ship, the Earl Camden, closely followed. Linois, possessed with the idea that he was engaged with ships of the line, did not observe that neither the number nor weight of the guns agreed with it; and conceiving himself in presence of a very superior force, after a few badly aimed broadsides, hauled his wind and fled. The loss of the English was one man killed and one wounded, both on board the Royal George; the other ships sustained no damage. Dance made the signal for a general chase, and for two hours enjoyed the extraordinary spectacle of a powerful squadron of ships of war flying before a number of merchantmen; then fearing a longer pursuit might carry him too far out of his course, and ‘ considering the immense property at stake,’ he recalled his ships, and the next morning continued his voyage. In the Straits, on 28 Feb., they met two English ships of the line which convoyed them as far as St. Helena, whence they obtained a further escort to England. Liberal rewards were voted to the several commanders, officers, and ships' companies. Dance was knighted; was presented with 5,000l. by the Bombay Insurance Company, and by the East India Company with a pension of 500l. a year. He seems to have lived for the remainder of his life in retirement; and died at Enfield on 25 March 1827, aged 79 (Gent. Mag. vol. xcvii. pt. i. p. 380).
[Markham's Sea Fathers, 211; Gent. Mag. (1804), vol. lxxiv. pt. ii. pp. 963, 967; James's Nav. Hist. (ed. 1860), iii. 249; Nav. Chron. xii. 137, 345 (with a portrait after George Dance), and xiii. 360; Chevalier's Histoire de la Marine française sous le Consulat et l'Empire, 296. For the account of the action off Pulo Aor, and of the enthusiastic reception of the news in England, see Marryat's Newton Forster.]
DANCE, WILLIAM (1755–1840), musician, born in 1755, studied the pianoforte under Aylward, and the violin under Baumgarten, and later under Giardini. He played the violin in an orchestra so early as 1767. He was for four years at Drury Lane under Garrick's management, and from 1775 to 1793 was a member of the King's Theatre orchestra. He led at the Haymarket in the summer seasons from 1784 to 1790, and at the Handel festival in Westminster Abbey in 1790. Dance was a member of the royal band before 1800. He subsequently gave up performing in public, and devoted himself to teaching. On 17 Jan. 1813 a circular proposing the foundation of the Philharmonic Society, signed by Cramer, Corri, and Dance, was issued from the latter's house, 17 Manchester Street, and on the establishment of the society he became a director and treasurer. He continued to hold both these offices down to his death, which took place at Brompton, 5 June 1840. Dance published a small quantity of unimportant pianoforte and vocal music.
[Dict. of Musicians (1827); Grove's Dict. of Music, i. 429; Gent. Mag. for 1840; Dance's publications; Brown's Dict. of Musicians.]
DANCER, Mrs. ANN. [See Barry, Mrs. Ann Spranger.]
DANCER, DANIEL (1716–1794), miser, was born at Pinner in 1716. His grandfather and father were both noted in their time as misers, and are only less known to fame because their accumulation of wealth was not so great. The elder Dancer died in 1736, and Daniel, as the eldest of his four children, succeeded to his estate, which consisted of eighty acres of rich meadow land and of an adjoining farm called Waldos. Hitherto Dancer had given no manifestation of his miserly instincts, but now, in company with his only sister, who shared his tastes and lived with him as his housekeeper, he commenced a life of the utmost seclusion and most rigid parsimony. His lands were allowed to lie fallow so that the expense of cultivation might be avoided. He took but one meal a day, consisting invariably of a little baked meat and a hard-boiled dumpling. A quantity sufficient to supply the wants of the household through the week was prepared every Saturday night. His clothing consisted mainly of hay bands, which were swathed round his feet for boots and round his body for a coat, but it was his habit to purchase one new shirt every year; and on one occasion he brought, and lost, a lawsuit
