HOWE, Richard (Viscount Howe), the first naval officer of his day, was born in 1725. His father was Emanuel
Scrope Howe, governor of Barbadoes, and his mother was a daughter of Baron Kielmansegge, master of the horse to George I. when elector of Hanover. Leaving Eton at the age of fourteen, he entered the navy, and joined the fleet which the English were then sending out under Anson to carry on the war against Spain in the Pacific. In this expedition he distinguished himself so much that in his twentieth year he rose to the rank of lieutenant. After some minor exploits, he signalized himself by gallantly defeating, off the Scottish coast, two French vessels of greatly superior size and strength to his own which were carrying supplies and reinforcements to the Pretender. For this exploit he was made a captain on his arrival in England. The next seven years of his life were spent in miscellaneous service in the West Indies, Africa, the Mediterranean, and the Northern Atlantic. When the Seven Years' War broke out, Howe was chiefly engaged in watching the southern and western coasts of France, and besides many minor exploits, defeated the French squadron under De Conflans, and took two of the enemies' ships. His brilliant career attracted the notice of the king (George II.) himself, who expressed the sentiment of the nation when he told Howe on his return home that his life had been an unbroken series of services to his country. Shortly before the close of the war Howe had married, and on the death of his elder brother, had inherited the title and estates of the Viscounts of Howe. On the proclamation of peace, he was made treasurer of the navy, with a seat at the Admiralty Board, and afterwards sat in parliament for Dartmouth. In 1770 he was made rear-admiral of the blue, and commander-in-chief of the Mediterranean fleet. Six years later, in the war of the American independence, he maintained his high character by the dashing success of his attack on the French fleet, which was cruising off Rhode Island under the Count d'Estaing with the view of aiding the revolted colonists against the mother country. On returning home he took command of the English fleet, which sailed to relieve Gibraltar, and in the teeth of many difficulties was completely successful. The remark made upon him some eight years before, by Lord Hawke in the House of Peers, continued to the last to hold as true as when it was first uttered, "I have tried my Lord Howe on many important occasions; he never asked me how he was to execute any service, but always went and performed it." On his arrival in England after this exploit, he was created Earl Howe, and succeeded Lord Keppel as first lord of the admiralty. When the war of the French Revolution began, Howe was chosen commander of the Channel fleet, and on June 1, 1794, gained the greatest of all his victories—that in which he defeated the French fleet off the western coast of France, dismasting ten of the enemy's ships, and taking seven, of which he brought off six in safety into Portsmouth harbour. The seventh, the Vengeur—about whose glorious resistance the French, on the lying report of Bertrand Barrère, sang so many Lo Peans—was so much shattered that she sank in the attempt to tow her away. (See Carlyle's Essay on the "Vengeur," in his Miscellanies.) Less brilliant, but not less useful, was the service which Lord Howe next rendered to his country,—by his suppression of the terrible mutiny of the British fleet at Portsmouth and Spithead. The means he took to recall the sailors to their duty, such as his dismissal of the obnoxious officers, &c., were a good deal canvassed at the time, but they certainly had the desired effect. Age and long service now began to make rapid inroads upon the old admiral's constitution, and he found himself compelled to retire from the service which he had graced with so many triumphs. He did not live long to enjoy the repose he had so dearly earned, dying under a violent attack of the gout, Aug. 5, 1799.
Lord Howe was the ablest British seaman of his day, and his ability and technical skill had endeared him above
Howitzer all his brother officers to the sailors, among whom, from the darkness of his complexion, he was familiarly known as Black Dick. He used no mean arts to gain this popularity, for he was extremely reserved in manner, and a most rigid disciplinarian. But his cool courage and presence of mind in the midst of danger, the strength and soundness of his judgment, and his strict impartiality, fully compensated the want of those graces which sometimes gain for their possessor a temporary and factitious repute. In person he was tall, strong, and well-made, and capable of enduring almost any amount of fatigue. His features, until lighted up by his smile, were harsh even to grimness.