THE ANNUAL BIOGRAPHY AND OBITUARY, FOR THE YEAR 1817. VOL. I. LONDON: PRINTED FOR LONGMAN, HURST, REES, ORME, AND BROWN, PATERNOSTER-ROW. 1817. 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; ' PREFACE. To insist on the advantages derived from Biography would be equally unnecessary and impertinent. Recent Memoirs may not indeed possess 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! 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 |