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Hastings
117
Hastings

debt due to the king in the exchequer and court of wards, and begging that he might pay by annual instalments.

He was buried at North Cadbury, Somersetshire, on 22 Sept. 1610. There is a monument in the church with the figures of himself and his wife, and an epitaph for the latter in verse of his composition, which has been printed in Nichols's ‘Leicestershire,’ iii. 588–589, and Bell's ‘Huntingdon Peerage,’ pp. 58–61. There is no inscription in commemoration of him. His wife was Magdalen, daughter of Sir Ralph Langford, and widow of Sir George Vernon. She died on 14 June 1596.

His works are:

  1. ‘A Watch-word to all Religious and True-hearted Englishmen,’ London, 1598, 8vo. Nicholas Doleman (i.e. Father Robert Parsons, the jesuit) replied in his ‘Temperate Wardword,’ printed in 1599, wherein he terms Hastings ‘the meanest beagle of the house of Huntingdon.’
  2. ‘An Apologie or Defence of the Watch-word, against the virvlent and seditiovs Wardword published by an English-Spaniard, lurking vnder the title of N. D. Devided into eight severall Resistances according to his so many Encounters,’ London, 1600, 4to.
  3. ‘The Wardword,’ London, 1601, 8vo. Answered by Parsons's ‘Warnword.’
  4. ‘Meditations,’ said to have been printed several times in 16mo.
  5. ‘Remonstrance to his Majesty and Privy Council on the behalf of persecuted Protestants; setting forth his Majestys Interest lying safely in protecting them, and incouraging the preaching of the Gospel, and in being more watchful against the Papists,’ manuscript.
  6. ‘A Discourse of Predestination,’ manuscript.
  7. ‘Collections relative to Public Affairs in his own time,’ manuscript (see Cooper, Athenæ Cantabr. ii. 201).

[Addit. MS. 5752, f. 107; Ames's Typogr. Antiq. (Herbert); Bell's Huntingdon Peerage, pp. 56–61; Bloxam's Magd. Coll. Register, ii. cvi, iv. 203; Brook's Life of Cartwright, p. 434; Cole's MS. lvi. 343; Collinson's Somersetshire, iii. 67–9; Ellis's Letters, 2nd ser. iii. 216; Fuller's Worthies (Leicestershire); Gardiner's Parliamentary Debates, p. 55; Hazlitt's Bibl. Collections and Notes, i. 203; Lowndes's Bibl. Man. (Bohn), p. 1011; Nichols's Leicestershire, i. 461, iii. 582, 588, 608, 775, iv. 624; Parliamentary History, 1762–3, iv. 416, 486, 495, 502, v. 100, 142, 148; Cal. State Papers, Dom. James I; Strype's Annals, ii. 382; Strype's Parker, p. 448; Strype's Whitgift, p. 279; Watt's Bibl. Brit.; Willis's Not. Parl. iii. (2) 82, 102, 123, 132, 140, 151, 162; Winwood's Memorials, ii. 48, 49; Wood's Athenæ Oxon. (Bliss), ii. 82.]

T. C.

HASTINGS, FRANCIS RAWDON-, first Marquis of Hastings and second Earl of Moira (1754–1826), eldest son of John, baron Rawdon, afterwards first earl of Moira, by his second wife, Lady Elizabeth Hastings, eldest daughter of Theophilus, ninth earl of Huntingdon, was born on 9 Dec. 1754. He was educated at Harrow, and gazetted an ensign in the 15th foot on 7 Aug. 1771. He matriculated at University College, Oxford, on 23 Oct. 1771, but did not take any degree, and on being appointed, on 20 Oct. 1773, to a lieutenancy in the 5th foot, embarked for America. In 1775 he distinguished himself by his gallantry at Bunker Hill, where he had two bullets through his cap, and on 12 July in that year was appointed to a company of the 63rd foot. He subsequently served at the battles of Brooklyn and White Plains, and in the attacks on Forts Washington and Clinton, and on 15 June 1778 received the rank of lieutenant-colonel, and in the same year was nominated adjutant-general to the forces in America. At Philadelphia he raised a corps called the Volunteers of Ireland, which greatly distinguished itself in the field. He took part in the retreat from Philadelphia to New York, in the action at Monmouth, and at the siege of Charlestown. He was next employed in South Carolina in keeping the Americans in check until the arrival of Lord Cornwallis, and on 16 Aug. 1780 commanded the left division of the British forces at the battle of Camden. On 25 April 1781, with only eight or nine hundred men, he attacked and defeated a larger body of Americans under the command of General Greene at Hobkirk's Hill. After harassing Greene for some time he was compelled to withdraw his troops to Charlestown. His health having broken down owing to the incessant fatigue of the campaign, he was obliged to leave America in the summer of 1781. The vessel in which he sailed for England was captured by a French cruiser and taken to Brest, but upon an exchange of prisoners soon afterwards he was released, and immediately returned to England. Rawdon was a stern martinet, and was guilty of several acts of impolitic severity during the American war. He even went so far as to set a price on the head of every rebel. He showed, however, remarkable military ability, and Cornwallis described his victory at Hobkirk's Hill ‘as by far the most splendid of this war’ (Cornwallis Correspondence, i. 97).

During the recess of 1780–1 Rawdon was returned to the Irish House of Commons as member for Randalstown, co. Antrim. On 4 Feb. 1782 the Duke of Richmond in the English House of Lords moved for information relating to the execution of Colonel Isaac Hayne at Charlestown. Though the motion was negatived, Rawdon considered that a scandalous