‘Sepulchral Monuments,’ I. i. lxxx. In 1776 he went out to the East Indies in command of the Cormorant, from which, on 7 Nov. 1777, he was posted to the Ripon as flag-captain to Sir Edward Vernon [q. v.], with whom he was in the skirmish off Pondicherry on 10 Aug. 1778. Young was then sent home with despatches, received the usual compliment of 500l. to buy a sword (Beatson, Nav. and Mil. Memoirs, iv. 410), and was appointed in March 1779 to the William and Mary yacht; in her he took the Prince of Wales to the Nore when the king visited the fleet under Sir Hyde Parker (1714–1782) [q. v.] after the action on the Doggerbank on 5 Aug. 1781. He was knighted on 24 Aug. 1781. Afterwards he was moved into the Catherine yacht, and during the Russian armament of 1791 to the Zealous. On 4 July 1794 he became a rear-admiral, vice-admiral on 14 Feb. 1799, and admiral on 23 April 1804, but had no service.
In 1784 Young took up actively, in conjunction with Lord Mansfield, Sir Joseph Banks (see Britton, pp. 3, 10), Thomas Rowcroft, and others, the proposal of Jean Maria Matra for the establishment of a colony in New South Wales, and wrote a paper containing a plan for this purpose, which was on 13 Jan. 1785 communicated to Lord Sydney [see Townshend, Thomas] by Sir R. Pepper Arden, the attorney-general, and became, with that of Matra, the basis of the official scheme on which the expedition of Governor Arthur Phillip [q. v.] was started. The value of Young's paper consists in its practical details; his two principal suggestions of an original nature—one for making the settlement a port of call for the China ships, the other for the cultivation there, in the interest of the navy, of the New Zealand flax-plant (Phormium tenax)—remained without fruit. It is a reprint of this paper, in a much shortened form, which is given in Britton, and was in 1888 reproduced in facsimile at Sydney. In 1788 Young, together with his connection John Call, applied to the colonial office for a grant of Norfolk Island, which had, however, been just taken up for settlement; and in 1791 he was a promoter and one of the first proprietors of the Sierra Leone Company (31 Geo. III, c. 55, preamble). In 1792 he was examined before the bar of the House of Commons on the African slave trade, and gave evidence of its evils, not less valuable because temperately worded. He filled for the first ten years of its existence (1786–1796) the post of treasurer to the board of commissioners of the Thames navigation.
Young died at his seat, Formosa Place, Berkshire, on 28 June 1810. He was a F.R.S. (elected 15 Feb. 1781) and F.S.A., a fine vocalist, and an amateur musician. Mrs. Bray tells some good stories of his manners and accomplishments, and describes him as remarkably handsome—a description which his portraits confirm. The best is a miniature by John Smart [q. v.], engraved in the ‘Naval Chronicle.’ He married, first, Elizabeth, daughter of Samuel Bradshaw of Great Marlow, and had issue by her two daughters and two sons, the elder of whom, Samuel, was created a baronet in November 1813. His second wife was Anne, daughter of Dr. William Battie [q. v.] of Bloomsbury.
[Naval Chronicle (with portrait), xxxi. 177; passing certificate, ships' pay-books and listbooks in the Public Record Office; Britton's Historical Records of New South Wales (by authority), vol. i. pt. ii. pp. xxvi, 10, 141; Autobiography of Anna Eliza Bray, p. 72; family papers in possession of Sir G. Young, bart.]
YOUNG, GEORGE (1777–1848), theologian, topographer, and geologist, was born on 15 July 1777 at a small farmhouse called Coxiedean in the parish of Kirknewton and East Calder, Edinburghshire, and spent four years in the university of Edinburgh, where he was known as one of John Playfair's favourite students, and where he made distinguished progress in literary and philosophical studies. Having completed with high honour his university course in 1796, he commenced the study of theology under George Lawson (1749–1820) [q. v.] at Selkirk, and in 1801 he was licensed to preach by the presbytery of Edinburgh of the associate secession church. In the summer of 1805 he first visited Whitby, and in January 1806 he was ordained pastor of the chapel of the united associate or new presbyterian congregation in that town. At this place of worship, situate in Cliff Lane, he officiated and preached for forty-two years. On 24 April 1819 the university of Edinburgh conferred upon him the degree of M.A. (Cat. of Edinburgh Graduates, 1858, p. 219). He afterwards became a doctor of divinity, but it does not appear where he obtained that degree. He was also a corresponding member of the Wernerian Natural History Society, and an honorary member of the Yorkshire and Hull literary and philosophical societies. He died at Whitby on 8 May 1848. There is a portrait of him in the museum at Whitby, painted by Edward Cockburn, and another portrait hangs in the vestry of the chapel in Cliff Lane.
In addition to some minor works, he wrote: 1. ‘Evangelical Principles of Religion vindi-
