gagement of 25 Aug., obliging the Swedish admiral on board the Gustavus to strike to him. In June 1790 a desperate action was fought off the island of Bornholm. Victory declared for the Russians, but of six English captains engaged in their service Thesiger was the only survivor. In recognition of his services in this action he received from the Empress Catherine the insignia of the order of St. George. In 1796 Sir Frederick accompanied the Russian squadron which came to the Downs to co-operate with the English fleet in the blockade of the Texel.
On the death of the Empress Catherine in 1797 he grew discontented with her successor, Paul, and, notwithstanding his solicitations, persisted in tendering his resignation. He was detained in St. Petersburg a year before receiving his passport, and finally departed without receiving his arrears of pay or his prize money. He arrived in England at a time when her maritime supremacy was threatened by the northern confederacy formed to resist her rigorous limitation of the commercial privileges of neutrals and her indiscriminate application of the right of search. On account of his peculiar knowledge of the Baltic and the Russian navy Thesiger was frequently consulted by Earl Spencer, the first lord of the admiralty. When war was decided on, he was promoted to the rank of commander, and at the battle of Copenhagen served Lord Nelson as an aide-de-camp. At the crisis of the battle he volunteered to proceed to the crown prince with the flag of truce, and, knowing that celerity was important, he took his boat straight through the Danish fire, avoiding a safer but more tardy route. During the subsequent operations in the Baltic his knowledge of the coast and of the Russian language proved of great value. On his return to England bearing despatches from Sir Charles Morice Pole [q. v.] he received a flattering reception from Lord St. Vincent, and shortly after was raised to the rank of post-captain, obtaining at the same time permission to assume the rank of knighthood and to wear the order of St. George. On the rupture of the treaty of Amiens he was appointed British agent for the prisoners of war at Portsmouth. He died, unmarried, at Elson, near Portsmouth, on 26 Aug. 1805.
[Universal Mag. November 1805; Naval Chronicle, December 1805; these memoirs were reprinted with the title ‘Short Sketch of the Life of Captain Sir F. Thesiger,’ London, 1806, 4to.]
THESIGER, FREDERICK, first Baron Chelmsford (1794–1878), lord chancellor, was the third and youngest son of Charles Thesiger (d. 1831), comptroller and collector of customs in the island of St. Vincent, by his wife Mary Anne (d. 1796), daughter of Theophilus Williams of London. Frederick's grandfather, John Andrew Thesiger (d. 1783), was a native of Saxony, who settled in England about the middle of the eighteenth century, and was employed as amanuensis to the Marquis of Rockingham. Frederick was born in London on 15 April 1794, and was at first placed at Dr. Charles Burney's school at Greenwich. He was destined for the navy, in which his uncle, Sir Frederick Thesiger [q. v.], afterwards Nelson's aide-de-camp at Copenhagen, was a distinguished officer, and was removed subsequently to a school at Gosport kept by another Dr. Burney specially to train boys for the navy. After a year at Gosport he joined the frigate Cambrian as a midshipman in 1807 and was present at the seizure of the fleet at Copenhagen; but shortly afterwards he quitted the navy on becoming heir to his father's West Indian estates by the death of his last surviving brother, George. He was sent to school for two years more, and then in 1811 went out to join his father at St. Vincent. A volcanic eruption on 30 April 1812 utterly destroyed his father's estate and considerably impoverished his family. It was then determined that he should practise in the West Indies as a barrister. He entered at Gray's Inn on 5 Nov. 1813, and successively read in the chambers of a conveyancer, an equity draughtsman, and of Godfrey Sykes, a well-known special pleader. Sykes thought his talents would be thrown away in the West Indies, and on his advice, though friendless and without connections, Thesiger resolved to try his fortune in England.
On 18 Nov. 1818 he was called to the bar. He joined the home circuit and Surrey sessions. In two or three years, by the removal of his chief competitors, Turton and Broderic, he attained the leadership of these sessions. He also became by purchase one of the four counsel of the palace court of Westminster. The experience thus gained in a constant succession of small cases, civil and criminal, was of great value to him. He attracted attention by his defence of Hunt, the accomplice of John Thurtell [q. v.], in 1824, and he owed so much to his success in an action of ejectment, thrice tried at Chelmsford in 1832, that, when he was raised to the peerage, he elected to take his title from that circuit town. He became a king's counsel in 1834, and was leader of his circuit for the next ten years. His name became very prominent in 1835 as counsel for the petitioners before the election committee which
