Mediterranean, Baltic, and North Sea stations, until promoted to be commander on 29 April 1802. In January 1804 he was appointed to the Acheron bomb, and on 4 Feb. 1805 being, in company with the Arrow sloop, in charge of convoy, was captured by two large French frigates, after a defence that was rightly pronounced by the court-martial (28 March 1805) to be ‘highly meritorious and deserving imitation’ [see Vincent, Richard Budd]. Farquhar was most honourably acquitted, and the president of the court, Sir Richard Bickerton, as he returned his sword, expressed a hope that he might soon be called on to serve in a ship in which he might meet his captor on more equal terms: ‘the result of the contest,’ he added, ‘may be more lucrative to you, but it cannot be more honourable.’ A few days later, 8 April, Farquhar was advanced to post rank; he afterwards was presented with a sword, value 100l., by the Patriotic Fund, and by the merchants of Malta with a piece of plate and complimentary letter, 19 Sept. 1808. From 1806 to 1809 he commanded the Ariadne of 20 guns in the Baltic and North Sea, during which time he captured several privateers, French and Danish. From 1809 to 1814 he commanded the Désirée frigate in the North Sea, captured many privateers, gunboats, and armed vessels, and was senior naval officer in the operations in the Weser, the Ems, and the Elbe in 1813, culminating in the capture of Glückstadt on 5 Jan. 1814. For these important services Farquhar was made a knight of the Sword of Sweden, and also of the Hanoverian Guelphic order. In 1815 he was made a C.B., and in September 1817 received the freedom of Aberdeen. From May 1814 to April 1816 he commanded the Liverpool of 40 guns at the Cape of Good Hope, and from 1830 to 1833 the Blanche in the West Indies, with a broad pennant, and for his services there during a revolt of the negroes received a vote of thanks from the House of Assembly of Jamaica, a sword valued at 150l., and a piece of plate from the merchants. On his return home he was knighted, and was made K.C.H. in 1832. He became rear-admiral in 1837, and died at his residence in Aberdeenshire 2 Oct. 1843.
[Marshall's Roy. Nav. Biog. iv. (vol. ii. pt. ii.) 929; Gent. Mag. 1843, vol. cxxii. pt. ii. p. 544.]
FARQUHAR, GEORGE (1678–1707), dramatist, born at Londonderry in 1678, is said to have been the son of a dean of Armagh, or of a poor clergyman with a living of 150l. a year and seven children. There was no dean of Armagh of the name. A John Farquhar was prebendary of Raphoe between 1667 and 1679, and may possibly have been his father. He was educated at Londonderry, and on 17 July 1694 was entered as a sizar in Trinity College, Dublin. The lives are all vague, but he probably preferred the theatre to the lecture-room. A story is told that he was expelled because, on being set to write an exercise upon the miracle of walking on the water, he made a profane jest about ‘a man who is born to be hanged.’ It is stated by his most authoritative biographer (Thomas Wilkes) that he left college, in 1695, on account of the death of his patron, Bishop Wiseman of Dromore, and became corrector of the press. In any case he took to the Dublin stage and appeared as Othello. He is said to have acted well, though his voice was thin and he suffered from ‘stage fright.’ While performing Guyomar in Dryden's ‘Indian Emperor’ he accidentally stabbed a fellow-actor. The man's life was endangered, and Farquhar was so shocked that he gave up acting. Wilkes, whose acquaintance he had made in Dublin, advised him to write a comedy, and gave him ten guineas, with which he went to London, apparently, in 1697 or 1698, in which year Wilkes himself returned to England. His first play, ‘Love and a Bottle,’ was produced at Drury Lane in 1699 and well received. In 1699, while dining at the Mitre Tavern, in St. James's Market, he heard Anne Oldfield, niece of the hostess, then aged 16, read the ‘Scornful Lady’ ‘behind the bar.’ Farquhar's admiration of her performance was reported to Vanbrugh, by whom she was introduced to Rich and engaged as an actress (Egerton, Mem. of Anne Oldfield, p. 77). She was afterwards intimate with Farquhar, and is said to be the ‘Penelope’ of his letters. In 1700 Farquhar produced the ‘Constant Couple.’ It is founded upon the ‘Adventures of Covent Garden,’ in imitation of Scarron's ‘City Romance’ published in 1699. Leigh Hunt points out that this was written by Farquhar himself, and contains a poem, ‘The Lover's Night,’ afterwards published in his ‘Miscellanies.’ The ‘Constant Couple’ is said to have been acted fifty-three times in London and twenty-three in Dublin. Malone lowers the first number to eighteen or twenty. He adds that Farquhar had three benefits. The great success led to the production of ‘Sir Harry Wildair,’ a weaker continuation. In 1702 he published ‘Love and Business; in a collection of occasionary verse and epistolary prose; not hitherto published. A Discourse likewise upon Comedy, in reference to the English stage.’ The same year, according to Wilkes, the Earl of Orrery gave
