Mediterranean with despatches, and remained attached to the Mediterranean fleet. On 12 Oct. 1793, having assisted in the capture of the Modeste and Impérieuse frigates, he was made post into the latter, renamed the Unité. In April 1794 he exchanged into the Lowestoft, and in the summer assisted at the siege of Calvi, a service for which he, together with the other frigate captains, was specially mentioned in Lord Hood's despatch (ib. p. 477 n.), which he had the honour of carrying home overland. He left Calvi on 11 Aug. and reached London on 1 Sept. In April 1796 he was appointed to the Clyde frigate, in the North Sea, and in May 1797 was refitting at the Nore when the mutiny broke out. Cunningham was, however, not absolutely dispossessed of the command, and succeeded, after seventeen days, in bringing his men back to their duty. During the night of 29 May the Clyde slipped her cables, and before morning was safe in Sheerness harbour. Her defection was the signal to many other ships to do likewise, and within a week the fleet had returned to its allegiance. Continuing in the Clyde, in the North Sea, and in the Channel, he had the fortune to meet the French frigate Vestale in the Bay of Biscay, which he captured without serious difficulty; for though of nominally the same number of guns, the Vestale mounted only 12-pounders on her main deck, while the Clyde carried 18-pounders (James, Nav. Hist. 1860, ii. 384). The capture, which was creditable enough to Cunningham, and not discreditable to the captain of the Vestale, was commended by Lord Keith, with absurd exaggeration, as ‘one of the most brilliant transactions which have occurred during the course of the war;’ and the king, being in the theatre at Weymouth when he received the news, commanded it to be communicated to the audience, on which ‘Rule Britannia’ was sung in wild chorus by the whole house. After a very active and successful commission, extending over more than six years, the Clyde was paid off in June 1802. In May 1803 Cunningham was appointed to the Prince of Orange, and for a few months commanded a squadron keeping watch on the Dutch in the Texel; but in September he was nominated a commissioner of the victualling board, and in 1806 was appointed commissioner of the dockyards at Deptford and Woolwich. He held this post till April 1823, when he was appointed superintendent of the dockyard at Chatham; and in May 1829 retired with the rank of rear-admiral. On 24 Oct. 1832 he was created knight commander of the Royal Hanoverian Guelphic Order, and died on 11 March 1834. He was twice married, but had been left a widower for some years, living latterly with his daughters in the neighbourhood of Eye.
[Marshall's Roy. Nav. Biog. ii. 75; United Service Journal, 1834, pt. ii. p. 84.]
CUNNINGHAM or CALZE, EDMUND FRANCIS (1742?–1795), portrait-painter, was the son of a gentleman of good family, and is stated to have been born at Kelso about 1742. His father, being involved in the Jacobite rebellion, fled from Scotland after the defeat of the Pretender in 1745, and settled in Italy, apparently at Bologna. Cunningham was brought up under the name of ‘Calze’ or ‘Calzo,’ doubtless from Kelso, his native place, and first studied painting at Parma, in the academy started by the duke at that town, taking Correggio as his principal model. Subsequently he worked at Rome under Raphael Mengs and Pompeo Batoni at Naples, where he studied the works of Solimena and Corrado, and also worked in the studio of Francesco de Mura and at Venice, where he studied the paintings of the contemporary painters there, and where he might have had considerable success himself had he not wished to continue his travels. He then visited Paris, and on this journey had the good fortune to paint a portrait of the king of Denmark, which brought him into great repute at court, and gained him numerous commissions. About this time he inherited his father's property, and seems to have resumed his family name; for a time he abandoned painting, but from his extravagance and irregular habits soon ran through his property, and another that also fell to him, becoming bankrupt in 1777. He was compelled to leave England, where he had resided for some years, drawing portraits in crayons, and occasionally exhibiting them and other paintings at the Royal Academy (1770–1781), always under the name ‘Calze,’ with sometimes the addition of ‘Il Bolognese.’ He then went in the train of the Duchess of Kingston to St. Petersburg, and, as he met with success there, quitted her service for that of the empress, Catharine II. In 1788 he went to Berlin, where he was extensively patronised by the court, and where he painted most of his best pictures in oil and in pastel. Subsequently he returned to London, where he continued to earn large sums of money; but his continued extravagance always kept him in debt, and he eventually died very poor in 1795. His finest portrait is generally reckoned to be that of ‘Frederick the Great returning to Sans Souci after the manœuvres at Potsdam, accompanied by his generals.’ Many of his portraits have been engraved, notably those of the Prussian court and nobility by
