THE ANNUAL BIOGRAPHY AND OBITUARY, FOR THE YEAR 1817. VOL. I. LONDON: PRINTED FOR LONGMAN, HURST, REES, ORME, AND BROWN, PATERNOSTER-ROW. TO HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS, FIELD MARSHAL THE DUKE OF KENT AND STRATHERN, EARL OF DUBLIN, K. G. &c. &c. &c. THE LIBERAL PATRON OF EDUCATION; THE SUCCESSFUL ADVOCATE OF CHARITABLE INSTITUTIONS; THE CONSTANT FRIEND OF THE POOR AND UNPROTECTED; A PRINCE WHO, ACTUATED BY TRUE DELICACY AND MAGNANIMITY, HAS BEEN INDUCED TO ENCOUNTER A TEMPORARY EXILE, IN A FOREIGN LAND: THIS VOLUME IS HUMBLY INSCRIBED, AS A PROOF THAT SUCH A GENEROUS SACRIFICE, AND SO MANY VIRTUES, ARE NOT FORGOTTEN IN HIS OWN. PREFACE. nent. To insist on the advantages derived from Biography would be equally unnecessary and impertipossess some of the advantages resulting from profound study and mature investigation; but they are eminently calculated to gratify a laudable spirit of inquiry, and that too, before curiosity has been suffered to evaporate in protracted expectation. By their means a multitude of fugitive and contemporaneous facts may be collected and embodied; while they serve to embalm the memory of those good and great men, deservedly dear to their friends and their Country! Recent Memoirs may not indeed It has been long lamented, that a Work, composed for the express purpose of perpetuating the reputation of our illustrious Countrymen, should still remain a desideratum in English Literature. Accordingly, many of our celebrated Philosophers, Statesmen, and Warriors, frequently glide away from the stage on which they have acted such conspicuous |