on the coast of Borneo, and had made themselves masters of this vessel. After a couple of days of friendly intercourse while lying at anchor near Bintang, these pirates resolved to take the Tiger and made a murderous attack on the English. They at once killed or drove overboard twenty who had gone on board the junk. At the same moment some five and twenty of them who were on board the Tiger rushed out of the cabin. They met Davys, whom they dragged back, hacked and slashed, and thrust out again. He staggered into the waist, and died almost immediately. And meantime under the half-deck there was a desperate struggle for life. The pirates were at length driven back into the cabin. There they still defended themselves, till the master training aft two demiculverins (32-pounders), and loading them with cross-bars, bullets, and case shot, fired them through the bulkhead, blowing the Japanese all to pieces. This was on 29 or 30 Dec. 1605. The narrow escape and the loss of his pilot seem to have sickened Michelborne of the adventure, and he shortly afterwards shaped his course for home, arriving at Portsmouth 9 July 1606.
By Davys's will, executed 12 Oct. 1604, we learn that he had three sons then living, Gilbert, Arthur, and Philip. His faithless wife would seem to have been dead, for he leaves one-fourth of his ‘worldly goods’ to Judith Havard, ‘unto whom I have given my faith in matrimony to be solemnised at my return;’ the goods to be ‘equally divided between my three sons and Judith Havard, my espoused love.’ Mention is also made of a brother, Edward Davys, and his children.
The spelling of Davys's name is here given from his own signature (Lansdowne MS. 46, No. 21), but it has been very commonly misspelt Daves, Davies, or Davis. This last form remains in our maps in the name of Davis Straits. His repute as a hydrographer and navigator has faded away, but even long after the introduction of the reflecting quadrant, known as Hadley's, the back staff and double quadrant, which Davys invented and described, continued in use. A Davys's quadrant, recovered from the wreck of the Royal George (1782), is now in the Museum of the Royal Naval College at Greenwich.
[There are several notices of Davys in the Calendars of State Papers, Domestic, 1591–4, and East Indies, 1513–1616, among which care must be taken to distinguish between him and John Davis of Limehouse [q. v.] The writings of Davys and the original accounts of his voyages have been carefully gathered and edited for the Hakluyt Soc. (1880) by Capt. A. H. Markham, R.N., with an exhaustive critical biographical and bibliographical introduction.]
DAVYS, MARY (fl. 1756), dramatist and novelist, a native of Ireland, became the wife of the Rev. Peter Davys or Davis, master of the free school of St. Patrick's, Dublin, after whose death in 1698 she resided for some time at York. Dean Swift, in his ‘Journal to Stella’ (21 Feb. 1712–13), says he has ‘been writing a letter to Mrs. Davis at York. She took care to have a letter delivered for me at lord treasurer's; for I would not own one she sent by post. She reproaches me for not writing to her these four years; and I have honestly told her it is my way never to write to those whom I am never likely to see, unless I can serve them, which I cannot her, &c., Davis, the schoolmaster's widow.’ Mrs. Davys afterwards kept a coffee-house at Cambridge, where she died. Writing in 1725 she remarks that she had been ‘left to her own endeavours for twenty-seven years together.’
She was the author of: 1. ‘The Northern Heiress, or the Humors of York, a comedy, as it was acted at the New Theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields,’ London, 1716, 12mo. 2. ‘The Reform'd Coquet, or the Memoirs of Amoranda,’ a novel, London, 1724, 12mo. 3. A collection of her ‘Works,’ 2 vols. London, 1725, 8vo, which contains, in addition to those already mentioned, ‘The Self-Rival, a comedy. As it should have been acted at the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane;’ ‘The Merry Wanderer;’ ‘The Modern Poet’ [in verse]; ‘The Lady's Tale’ (written in 1700); ‘The Cousins,’ a novel; and ‘Familiar Letters betwixt a Gentleman and a Lady.’ 4. ‘The Accomplish'd Rake, or the Modern Fine Gentleman. Being the genuine Memoirs of a certain Person of Distinction,’ London, 1756, 12mo.
Thirty-six letters from Dean Swift to her and her husband were formerly in the possession of Dr. Ewen of Cambridge.
[Baker's Biog. Dram. (1812), i. 178, iii. 87, 256; Lowndes's Bibl. Manual (Bohn), p. 604; Cat. of Printed Books in Brit. Mus.; Swift's Works, ed. Scott (1824), iii. 118; Ware's Writers (Harris), 261.]
DAWE, GEORGE (1781–1829), portrait-painter and mezzotint engraver, was born in Brewer Street, Golden Square, London, on 8 Feb. 1781. His father, Philip Dawe, was a mezzotint engraver, and an intimate friend of George Morland, who was godfather to the son. When only fourteen years of age George published two plates after John Graham, ‘Mary Queen of Scots’ and ‘Elizabeth and St. John.’ In 1796 he entered the schools of the Royal Academy, where he was a diligent student, but continued to engrave in mezzotint, among his works being portraits
