Keppel to write to the papers and contradict the report. Keppel refused, whereupon Palliser applied to the admiralty for a court-martial on Keppel, which resulted in an acquittal. The London mob celebrated the triumph of the popular party by gutting Palliser's house in Pall Mall, and by burning Palliser in effigy. In York they are said to have demolished the house of Palliser's sister, who went mad with the fright (Walpole, Letters, vii. 180). The story was probably exaggerated.
The court-martial on Keppel had pronounced the charges ‘malicious and ill-founded.’ Palliser consequently resigned his appointments, and applied for a court-martial on himself. Keppel was directed to prepare the charge, but positively refused to do so. The admiralty, under the presidency of the Earl of Sandwich, were determined that the court should sit and should acquit their colleague. The court was packed in a way till then unknown: ships were ordered to sea if their captains were supposed to be hostile; ships were called in if their captains were believed to be favourable. The trial lasted for twenty-one days; but there was no prosecutor, there were no charges, and the proceedings were rather of the nature of a court of inquiry. Finally, after three days of loud and angry contention, the court found that Palliser's ‘conduct and behaviour were in many respects highly exemplary and meritorious;’ but, they added, they ‘cannot help thinking it was incumbent on him to have made known to his commander-in-chief the disabled state of the Formidable, which he might have done.’ They were of opinion that in other respects he was ‘not chargeable with misconduct or misbehaviour,’ and acquitted him accordingly, but neither unanimously nor honourably. A fair and independent court, with a capable prosecutor, would probably have arrived at a very different conclusion.
Palliser at once requested to be reinstated in the offices which he had resigned. Though Lord Sandwich shrank from granting this request, he appointed Palliser governor of Greenwich Hospital next year, on the death of Sir Charles Hardy the younger [q. v.] A strong but vain protest was made by the opposition in the House of Commons. Keppel, in the course of the debate, said ‘he had allowed the vice-admiral behaved gallantly as he passed the French line; what he had to complain of was the vice-admiral's neglect of signals after the engagement; for if the lion gets into his den and won't come out of it, there's an end of the lion.’ On the downfall of the ministry no attempt was made to disturb Palliser at Greenwich. He became an admiral on 24 Sept. 1787, and died at his country seat of Vach in Buckinghamshire, on 19 March 1796, ‘of a disorder induced by the wounds received on board the Sutherland,’ which for many years had caused him much suffering. He was buried in the parish church of Chalfont St. Giles, where there is a monument to his memory. He was unmarried, and bequeathed the bulk of his fortune to his illegitimate son. The title descended to his grand-nephew, Hugh Palliser Walters, who took the name of Palliser, and from him to his son, on whose death it became extinct. Till 1773 Palliser always signed his name Pallisser; in the summer of 1773 he dropped one s, and always afterwards signed Palliser. His portrait, by Dance, was in the possession of the last baronet, who gave a copy of it to the Painted Hall at Greenwich. It has been engraved.
Palliser's character was very differently estimated by the factions of the day, and his conduct on 27 July 1778 remains a mystery; but the friend of Saunders, Locker, Mark Robinson, and Goodall can scarcely have been otherwise than a capable and brave officer. It is possible that the pain of his old wounds rendered him irritable, and led to his quarrel with Keppel. It was characteristic of Lord Sandwich to utilise it for party purposes.
[Charnock's Biogr. Nav. v. 483; Naval Chron. xxxix. 89; European Mag. 1796, p. 219; Minutes of the Courts-Martial on Keppel and Palliser (published); Keppel's Life of Keppel; Considerations on the Principles of Naval Discipline (1781); Parl. Hist. xx. xxi.; Beatson's Nav. and Mil. Memoirs; Official Letters, &c. in the Public Record Office.]
PALLISER, JOHN (1807–1887), geographer and explorer, born on 29 Jan. 1807, was eldest son of Wray Palliser (d. 1862), of Comragh, co. Waterford, sometime lieutenant-colonel of the Waterford artillery militia, by Anne, daughter of John Gledstanes of Annsgift, co. Tipperary. Sir William Palliser [q. v.] was his younger brother. John was sheriff of Waterford during 1844, and served in the Waterford artillery militia as a captain. In 1847 he set out on a hunting expedition among the Indians of the western and north-western districts of America; and, after going through many strange and dangerous adventures, returned to England, and published in 1853 his experiences under the title of ‘Adventures of a Hunter in the Prairies,’ of which the eighth thousand, with illustrations, and the title slightly altered, appeared in 1856. In the following year, Henry Labouchere [q. v.] secretary of state for the colonies, on the recom-
