Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 28.djvu/98

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Howe
92
Howe

guineas was placed on his head, with a free pardon and passage to England if required. Howe's position became desperate; he had quarrelled with his associates; he attempted to free himself, by another murder, from the native girl who had lived with him. She fled and gave information of his hiding-places. With her assistance a party of three men, bent on obtaining the hundred guineas, tracked him, overtook him, and endeavoured to make him prisoner. After a desperate resistance he was killed by a blow from the butt-end of a musket. His head was cut off and carried into Hobart Town. In his knapsack was found a pocket-book, in which he had written with kangaroo's blood notices of miserable dreams, and a list of seeds, vegetables, &c., showing—it was thought—an intention to settle somewhere if he made good his escape.

[Quarterly Review, xxiii. 73, an article based on Michael Howe, the last and worst of the Bushrangers of Van Diemen's Land. Narrative of the Chief Atrocities committed by this great Murderer and his Associates during a period of six years. From Authentic sources of Information, Hobart Town, 12mo, 1818. It is said by the Quarterly Review to be 'the first child of the press of a state only fifteen years old;' Bonwick's The Bushrangers, illustrating the Early Days of Van Diemen's Land (1856), p. 47. The same author's Mike Howe, the Bushranger of Van Diemen's Land (1873), though a work of fiction, professes to be 'a narrative of facts as to the leading incidents of the bushranger's career.']


HOWE, OBADIAH (1616?–1683), divine, born in Leicestershire about 1616, was the son of William Howe, incumbent of Tattershall, Lincolnshire (Cox, Magna Britannia, 'Lincolnshire,' p. 1444). In 1632 he became a member of Magdalen Hall, Oxford, and graduated B.A. on 23 Oct. 1635 (Wood, Fasti Oxon. ed. Bliss, i. 478), M.A. on 26 May 1638 (ib. i. 501). At the time of the battle of Winceby (1643) he was rector of Stickney, Lincolnshire, and is said to have entertained the leaders of the parliamentary forces the day before the fight (Thompson, Hist. of Boston, ed. 1856, pp. 171-2). He was afterwards vicar of Horncastle and rector of Gedney, Lincolnshire. At the Restoration he again changed sides, and managed to obtain the vicarage of Boston (1660). On 9 July 1674 he accumulated his degrees in divinity at Oxford (Wood, Fasti, ii. 344, 345). He died on 27 Feb. 1682-3, and was buried in Boston Church (Thompson, p. 777). The well-known John Howe (1630-1705) [q. v.] was his nephew. Besides two sermons, he published:

  1. 'The Universalist examined and convicted, destitute of plaine Sayings of Scripture, or Evidence of Reason. In Answer to a Treatise entituled "The Universality of Gods free Grace in Christ to Mankind,"' 4to [London], 1648.
  2. 'The Pagan Preacher silenced; or, an Answer to a Treatise of Mr. John Goodwin entituled "The Pagans Debt & Dowry" … With a Verdict on the Case depending between Mr. Goodwin and Mr. Howe by the learned George Kendal, D.D.,' 2 pts. 4to, London, 1655. Goodwin, in the preface to his 'Triumviri' (4to, London, 1658), says of Howe 'that he was a person of considerable parts and learning, but thought so most by himself.'

[Wood's Athenæ Oxon. (Bliss), iv. 65-6.]

HOWE, RICHARD, Earl Howe (1726–1799), admiral of the fleet, born in London on 8 March 1725-6, was second son of Emanuel Scrope Howe, second viscount Howe in the peerage of Ireland, and of Mary Sophia Charlotte, daughter of the Baroness Kielmansegge, afterwards Countess of Darlington. Scrope Howe, first viscount Howe [q. v.], was his grandfather. In 1732 his father was appointed governor of Barbadoes, where he died in March 1735. It is stated by Mason that Richard Howe was sent, for the time, to school at Westminster. According to the Westminster school-lists, a boy of the name of How or Howe was there from 1731 to 1735, but no Christian name is given, and the identification is doubtful (information from Mr. G. F. Russell Barker). It is believed that he went to Eton in or about 1735. On 16 July 1739 he was entered on board the Pearl, then commanded by the Hon. Edward Legge [q. v.], but probably remained at Eton for another year. On 3 July 1740 he joined the Severn, to which Legge was moved, and accompanied Anson as he sailed from St. Helens on his voyage round the world [see Anson, George, Lord]. The Severn, however, got a very short way beyond Cape Horn, being driven back in a violent storm; and, after refitting at Rio de Janeiro, she returned to England, where she paid off, 24 June 1742. Sir John Barrow (Life of Earl Howe, p. 7) lays some stress on the severity of this initiation of young Howe to the naval service; but it appears that for him the hardships were reduced to the minimum, if we may accept the statement of a hostile witness many years afterwards, to the effect that during the voyage he messed with the captain, and lived in the captain's cabin (An Address to the Right Honourable the First Lord Commissioner of the Admiralty, by an Officer, 1786, p. 29). On 17 Aug. 1742 he joined the Burford, with Captain Franklin Lushington, and went in her to the West Indies, where he was present at the attack on La Guayra on 18 Feb. 1742-3 [see Knowles, Sir Charles], when Lush-