Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Pearce, Nathaniel
PEARCE, NATHANIEL (1779–1820), traveller, born on 14 Feb. 1779, at East Acton, Middlesex, was educated at private schools, but, proving wild and incorrigible, was apprenticed to a carpenter and joiner in Duke Street, Grosvenor Square. He soon ran away to sea, and on his return was apprenticed to a leather-seller, whom he left suddenly to enlist on the Alert man-of-war. In May 1794 he was taken prisoner by the French; but after many attempts succeeded in escaping, and served again in the navy. Many adventures followed. Deserting from the Antelope in July 1804, he seems to have made his way to Mocha and adopted mahomedanism, but managed to reach, on 31 Dec. 1804, the vessel that was conveying Lord Valentia's mission to Abyssinia. Arrived at Massowa, he accompanied, in the summer of next year, Henry Salt [q. v.] as English servant on his mission to the court of the Ras Welled Selassé of Tigré. On Salt's departure in November, Pearce stayed behind in the service of the Ras. On more than one occasion he was compelled by jealous intriguers to quit the court, but by the autumn of 1807 he had made his position there secure. In 1808 he married the daughter of Sidee Paulus, a Greek. In 1810 he met Salt's second expedition, and escorted it from the coast and back. Pearce remained in Abyssinia till 1818, when he set out for Cairo on a visit to Salt. He reached Cairo in 1819, and, after a journey up the Nile, returned there and died at Alexandria from the results of exposure on 12 Aug. 1820, when his passage had been taken to England, the ‘R’ against his name in the navy list having been removed at the instance of his friends.
His journals, which are one long record of adventures, and contain a most minute and careful account of the habits and customs of the Abyssinians, were edited by J. J. Halls, and published under the title of the ‘Life and Adventures of N. Pearce,’ 2 vols. 12mo, London, 1831.
[Pearce's Life; Salt's Voyage to Abyssinia, 1814; Viscount Valentia's Voyages and Travels, vol. ii. 1809; Gent. Mag. 1820, vol. ii.]