Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 38.djvu/264

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Montagu
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Montagu

had children, of whom one son, Basil, is separately noticed; another, Robert, died an admiral in 1830.

[The very adulatory Memoir by the Rev. J. Cooke, prefixed to the Voyage round the Mediterranean, is the only one of any length that has been published. Another, not adulatory, said to have been printed in 1770, is Life, Adventures, Intrigues, and Amours of the celebrated Jemmy Twitcher, exhibiting many striking proofs to what baseness the human heart is capable of descending. It is extremely rare. The public life of Sandwich is to be traced in the history, and especially the naval history, of his time; in Parliamentary History, more especially 1770–82; Coxe's Memoirs of the Pelham Administration; Walpole's Letters and Memoirs of George III; Correspondence of John, fourth Duke of Bedford; Correspondence of the Earl of Chatham; Barrow's Life of Anson; Keppel's Life of Keppel; Jesse's George Selwyn and his Contemporaries; Dilke's Papers of a Critic; Chesterfield's Letters; Trevelyan's Early Life of C. J. Fox. There are numerous references to the diplomatic correspondence, 1745–8, in the Brit. Mus. Catalogues of Add. MSS. 1854–75 and 1882–7. Cf. Cradock's Literary and Miscellaneous Memoirs, especially i. 117–19, 139–54, and iv. 163–76, and Charles Butler's Reminiscences, i. 70–2. Skits, squibs, and abusive pamphlets are numerous, among which may be named The Duenna, London, 1776. The copy in the Brit. Mus. [643, i. 17 (4)] has ‘by Mr. Sheridan’ written on the title-page; but the statement seems extremely doubtful. See also Doyle's Baronage; Gent. Mag. 1792, i. 482; and Collins's Peerage, 1812, iii. 470.]

J. K. L.


MONTAGU, JOHN (1719–1795), admiral, born in 1719, son of James Montagu of Lackham in Wiltshire (d. 1747), and great-grandson of James Montagu of Lackham (1602-1665), third son of Henry Montagu, first earl of Manchester [q. v.], entered the Royal Academy at Portsmouth on 14 Aug. 1733. He afterwards served in the Yarmouth, in the Dreadnought with Captain Medley, in the Shoreham, in the Dragon with Curtis Barnett, in the Dauphin with Lord Aubrey Beauclerk all on the home or Mediterranean station. He passed his examination on 5 June 1740, was promoted to be lieutenant on 22 Dec., and on 2 Feb. 1740-1 was appointed to the Buckingham. In her he was present at the battle off Toulon on 11 Feb. 1743-4, though not engaged, the Buckingham being in the rear with Vice-admiral Richard Lestock [q. v.] At the court-martial on Lestock his deposition was adverse to the prisoner, who in cross-examining suggested that Montagu's evidence was dictated by Towry, captain of the Buckingham. 'I never ask any man's opinion,' answered Montagu, 'but go by my own. I always judged Mr. Lestock's conduct on that day unlike an officer, and always said so' (Minutes of the Court-martial).

Shortly afterwards Montagu was moved into the Namur, the flagship of Admiral Mathews, and on 2 March 1744-5 he was promoted to command the Hinchinbroke. In the following January he was posted to the Ambuscade of 40 guns, which in the spring of 1747 was attached to the squadron under Anson, and was present in the action off Cape Finisterre on 3 May. After commanding for short periods various frigates, in one of which, the Kent, he was succeeded by Rodney in January 1753, he was in January 1757 appointed to the Monarque at Portsmouth, and on 14 March had the painful duty of superintending the execution of Admiral Byng, who was shot on the Monarque's quarter-deck. Two months later the Monarque went out to the Mediterranean with Admiral Henry Osborn [q. v.], and on 28 Feb. 1758 assisted in the scattering and destruction of De la Clue's squadron off Cartagena. In February 1759 he was appointed to the Raisonnable, and in her joined Commodore John Moore [q. v.] in the West Indies. He was there moved into the Panther, which he brought home, and, again in rapid succession, into the Terrible, the Newark, and the Princess Amelia, one of the fleet with Hawke in the Bay of Biscay in 1760-1. On 22 June 1762 he was moved into the Magnanime [cf. Howe, Richard, Earl], and in May 1763 to the Dragon, which he commanded as guardship at Chatham till 1766. In July 1769 he was appointed to the Bellona, and on 18 Oct. 1770 was promoted to the rank of rear-admiral. From March 1771 to 1774 he was commander-in-chief on the North American station, defined as 'from the River St. Lawrence to Cape Florida and the Bahama Islands.' On 3 Feb. 1776 he was promoted to be vice-admiral, and shortly afterwards appointed commander-in-chief at Newfoundland, where, during the next three years, he was chiefly occupied in maintaining a system of active cruising against the enemy's privateers, and, on the outbreak of the war with France, in detaching a squadron to take possession of the islands Saint Pierre and Miquelon. He returned to Portsmouth just in time to sit on the court-martial on Admiral Keppel. On 8 April 1782 he was promoted to be admiral of the blue, and from 1783 to 1786 was commander-in-chief at Portsmouth. On 24 Sept. 1787 he became admiral of the white squadron. During his later years he settled at Fareham in Hampshire, where he died in August 1795.