BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR OF THE LATE RIGHT HONOURABLE GEORGE BRYDGES, LORD RODNEY, K.B.

Summary

He came like a cloud of rain, in the days of the sun, when slow it rolls on the hill, and fields expect the shower.

Ossian.

At a period when the energy of the British nation was affected by an untoward combination of events, and when its maritime power did not possess the proud supremacy of the present day, the skill and exertions of Admiral Rodney counteracted the alarming threats of the enemy, and supported with peculiar glory the naval interests of his Country.

His father was Henry Rodney, Esq. of Walton upon Thames, in the county of Surry, a naval officer who commanded the yacht, in which the King, attended by the Duke of Chandos, used to embark in going to or coming from Hanover, and who in consequence asked leave that his son might be called George Brydges. The royal, and noble godfathers, advised Captain Rodney to educate his boy for his own profession, promising, as we are told, to promote him as rapidly as the merit he should display, and the regulations of the navy would permit. His mother, Mary, was the eldest daughter, and co-heir, of Sir Henry Newton, Knight, envoy extraordinary to Genoa, Tuscany, &c. Mr. George Rodney, the subject of the present Memoir, was their second son, and was born in the month of December 1718.