Footnote 4:[(return)]
In "N. & Q.," Vol. ix., p. 19., I find, under the head of "Wylcotes Brass," an answer to the inscription "In . on . is . all;" and as the inscription on the tombstone discovered in All Saints, Pontefract, was very legibly written "In God is all," may not one family be a branch of the other? Can you say where the quotation is from?
Minor Queries.
Admiral Hopson.—In Tomkins' History of the Isle of Wight (1796), vol. ii. p. 123., an anecdote is told of a native of Bonchurch named Hobson, who afterwards became Admiral Hobson. It is mentioned that he was an orphan, bound apprentice to a tailor; and that being struck with the sight of a squadron of ships off the Isle of Wight, he rowed off in a boat to them, and was received on the admiral's ship; that the next day, in an engagement with the French, when his ship was engaged yard-arm and yard-arm with the enemy, he climbed up the mast, clambered to the enemy's yard-arm, mounted to the top-gallant mast, and took down the flag. This created consternation in the enemy, who were soon defeated. Hobson was
promoted to be an officer, and ultimately became an admiral.
This is the story as told by Tomkins. I wish to know what was his authority.
Consulting Chernoch's Lives of the Admirals, I find mention of Admiral Sir Thomas Hopson, a native of Bonchurch; who ran away from his parents, and did not return to his home till he was an admiral. This Sir Thos. Hopson was made second lieutenant in 1672, the year of the action in Solbay, in which the Earl of Sandwich perished. He rose to the rank of Vice-Admiral of the Red; and in the action of Vigo, in 1702, he distinguished himself, and was knighted in consequence. He received a pension of 500l. a year, and retired from the service in this year. He died in 1717. After he quitted the navy, he became Member of Parliament for Newtown, in the Isle of Wight.
It is evident that this Hopson is the Hobson of Tomkins; and that Tomkins spoke of the French by mistake for the Dutch enemy. But I cannot discover what authority he had for his account of the manner in which young Hobson first distinguished himself.
G. Currey.