Samuel, and was appointed by him to command the Diana, one of the small schooners employed for the prevention of smuggling. She had thirty men, with an armament of four 2-pounders, and on 27 May 1775, being sent from Boston into the Charles river, was attacked by a large force of insurgents, whose numbers swelled till they reached a total of something like two thousand men, with two field-pieces. It fell calm, and towards midnight, as the tide ebbed, the Diana took the ground, and lay over on her side, when the colonial forces succeeded in setting her on fire, and the small crew, after a gallant defence, were compelled to abandon her, Graves having been first severely burnt, as well as his brother John, then a lieutenant of the Preston flagship, who had been sent in one of the Preston's boats to the Diana's support (Beatson, Nav. and Mil. Mem. iv. 72). Graves continued after this employed in command of other tenders in the neighbourhood of Boston and Rhode Island till, on the recall of his uncle, he rejoined the Preston and returned to England; but was again sent out to the North American station in the same ship, commanded by Commodore Hotham. In 1779 he was promoted to the command of the Savage sloop on the West Indian and North American stations, and in May 1781 he was advanced to post rank. In the temporary absence of Commodore Affleck [see Affleck, Sir Edmund], he commanded the Bedford in the action of 5 Sept., off the Chesapeake, and continuing afterwards in the Bedford, as Affleck's flag captain, was present in the engagement at St. Kitts on 26 Jan. 1782, and in the actions to leeward of Dominica on 9 and 12 April, in which last the Bedford had a very distinguished part. In the following autumn Graves was appointed to the Magicienne frigate, in which, on 2 Jan. 1783, he fought a very severe action with the French Sybille, a frigate of superior force, but encumbered with a second ship's company which she was carrying to the Chesapeake. Both frigates were reduced to a wreck, and so parted; the Magicienne to get to Jamaica a fortnight later; the Sybille to be captured on 22 Jan. by the Hussar [see Russell, Thomas Macnamara]. During the peace Graves spent much of his time in France, and in the early years of the revolutionary war had no employment. It was not till October 1800 that he was appointed to command the Cumberland of 74 guns, in the Channel fleet, under the orders of Lord St. Vincent. This was only for a few months; for on 1 Jan. 1801 he was promoted to be rear-admiral of the white, and in March hoisted his flag on board the Polyphemus of 64 guns, one of the fleet proceeding to the Baltic with Sir Hyde Parker (1739–1807) [q. v.] Graves afterwards shifted his flag to the Defiance, and in her was second in command under Lord Nelson at the battle of Copenhagen, 2 April 1801. For his services on this important occasion he received the thanks of parliament, and was nominated by the king a knight of the order of the Bath. Towards the end of July the fleet quitted the Baltic, and on its return to England Graves, who had been in very bad health during the greater part of the campaign, retired from active service. He became a vice-admiral on 9 Nov. 1805, admiral on 2 Aug. 1812, and died at his house near Honiton in 1814. He was twice married, but had issue only one daughter. His portrait by Northcote is in the Painted Hall at Greenwich.
[Naval Chron. viii. 353 (with an engraved portrait after Northcote); Gent. Mag. lxxxiv. pt. ii. 87; Nicolas's Nelson Despatches, vol. iv. passim (see index at the end of vol. vii., where he is confused with his cousin, the first Lord Graves, a not infrequent error); Foster's Peerage.]
GRAVESEND, RICHARD de (d. 1279), bishop of Lincoln, became dean of Lincoln in 1254, and was treasurer of Hereford previously to 1258 (Le Neve, Fasti, i. 488, ii. 31). In September 1254 he, together with the Dean of London, was appointed to carry out the pope's confirmation of the excommunication of the infractors of Magna Charta, and a letter which he addressed to the Bishop of Lichfield on this matter in May 1255 is preserved (Ann. Burt. i. 320–3). In July 1258 he was appointed to decide the rights of the abbey of Oseney to the church of St. George-in-the-Castle at Oxford (Ann. Oseney, iv. 120). He was elected bishop of Lincoln on 23 Sept. 1258 (Matt. Paris, v. 719; 21 Sept. according to Oseney, iv. 121), received the royal assent on 13 Oct. (Pat. Roll), and was consecrated by Archbishop Boniface at Canterbury 3 Nov. following (Matt. Paris, v. 721; Oseney, iv. 121). He immediately crossed over with the Earls of Leicester and Gloucester to be present at the parliament of Cambray on 6 Nov. in order to negotiate for a peace between England and France (Matt. Paris v. 720; Ann. Dunst. iii. 211). He accompanied King Henry on a similar mission in November of next year (Wykes, iv. 123). During the barons' war he sided with Simon de Montfort, and in 1263, together with the Bishops of London and Lichfield, conducted the negotiations which led to a
