appointed to the Bombay Castle 74, stationed at Plymouth as a guard-ship. In April 1784, he was elected M.P. for that borough, which he represented till the year 1789, when he vacated his seat on receiving a patent as Resident Commissioner of Plymouth DockYard, the duties of which office he performed in the most exemplary manner upwards of twenty-six years. He died at Stonehall, Stonehouse, co. Devon, Feb. 4, 1823; at which period, had he accepted his flag, he would have been the senior Admiral of the Red.
The following is the introduction to a brief notice of Captain Fanshawe’s services, which we have met with in a small volume of naval biography, published in 1788:– “Captain Robert Fanshawe,” says the writer, “is one of the ablest officers the British fleet can boast; – cool, collected, brave, and active; ever ready for service when called upon, and rigidly attentive to the most trivial, as well as the more important duties of his station. It may with truth be observed of him, that his ship is like his mansion, – the ship’s company his family; the former in a constant state of regularity, the latter governed by a rigid but a just hand. A scrupulous observer of the relative duties he owes his country as a citizen and a soldier, Captain Fanshawe exacts a like conduct on the part of all with whom he may have any concern, whether civil or military.”
Captain Fanshawe married Christiana, daughter of John Gennys, Esq., and by that lady had issue three sons and nine daughters. His eldest son, Robert, Captain of the Carysfort frigate, died at Antigua in 1804; although a very young man, he had given repeated proofs of his skill, zeal, and gallantry, in which he was surpassed by few, if any officers, of his age and standing in the profession; of which, had he been spared, he would no doubt have been a great ornament. The second son, Edward, is a Major in the Royal Engineers; and the youngest, Arthur, a Post-Captain, R.N. The names of the daughters are as follow:– Christiana, married the Rev. Francis Haggitt, D.D. Prebendary and Sub-Dean of Durham, died in 1810. Elizabeth, married to F. Glanville, Esq. Susan, married to Vice-Admiral Bedford. Catharine, married to Sir T. Byam Martin, K.C.B., Comptroller of the Navy. Cordelia, married Captain J. C. White, R.N.,
