# Protestant Exiles from France/Book First - Chapter 11 - Section VII

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VII. Marryat, M.P.
Students of refugee biography will probably discover that refugees of this stock came to England both in the earlier immigrations and also after the Revocation Edict of 1685. The surnames Mariette, Marriott, Merrit, &c, seem to appear frequently, but I have not met with any pedigrees. There is, however, one celebrated family that adopted the spelling Marryat, as to which we are always told that the first settler in England was a French refugee, a fugitive from the St. Bartholomew massacre of 1572; and there being no reason to doubt the accuracy of this tradition, the family is memorialized in this chapter. As, however, they do not appear to have revealed anything more as to the past, we must describe them as we first find them, “a highly respectable family at East Bergholt, in Suffolk.” In the first quarter of last century they are found in London, where Thomas (afterwards Thomas Marryat, M.D.) was born about 1725. Dr. Marryat commenced his medical practice at Lothbury, a district situated behind the Bank of England; he printed some “Medical Aphorisms” in 1756, which he withdrew from publication in favour of his larger work, entitled “The Art of Healing; or, a New Practice of Physic” (which first saw the light in Dublin), latterly styled “Therapeutics; or, the Art of Healing.” He left London in 1762, and practised medicine in Dublin and several towns in the North of Ireland. He returned to England in February 1774, and practised successfully at Shrewsbury. Ultimately he settled at Bristol; and I find the last sad announcement in the Gentleman’s Magazine, "Died, 4th June 1792, Dr. Marryat, an eminent physician at Bristol.” In the ninth edition of his “Art of Healing,” he informs us, “This work has passed through five quarto editions at one guinea, and four in octavo.” A quarto edition was published at Shrewsbury in 1775; the fifth edition was a pocket volume, Birmingham, 1775, which was reprinted as the sixth in 1777, reproducing an autobiographical preface which had been given in the fourth. The last edition issued in his lifetime was the tenth, the preface being dated Bristol, July 1, 1791. [I have before me the fourteenth edition, Bristol, 1798.] He was the ​father of Joseph Marryat, M.P., and of Samuel Marryat, a successful barrister, who rose to be a King’s Counsel.
Dr. Marryat’s eldest son, Joseph, was born in London in 1756. His father’s circumstances were never affluent, and the young man was the architect of the fortune at which he arrived. Having early resolved to be a merchant, he was sent to the island of Grenada, in the West Indies, where about twelve years of his life appear to have elapsed. Happening to visit Boston, he met there a young lady, whom he married in 1788, Charlotte, third daughter of Frederick Geyer, Esq., known as an American “loyalist.” This step led to his return home, and he settled in London in 1789 as a West Indian merchant. He was Agent for the islands of Grenada and Trinidad. Such was his eminence, that he rose to be Chairman of Lloyd’s; he was also the head of the banking house of Marryat, Kaye, Price, & Co. He entered the House of Commons in 1812 at the ripe age of fifty-six; he was elected one of the M.P.’s for Sandwich on 7th October 1812, and was re-elected on 18th June 1818 and 7th March 1820; he spoke with authority on colonial questions and the interests of commerce. His country seat was Wimbledon House, in Surrey. “Living during the vacation of Parliament almost entirely at his country house, he dispensed most nobly and liberally the comforts of hospitality to a large neighbourhood around him.” He was a staunch Tory of the old school, and an exemplary High Churchman. “Few men (says Sylvanus Urban) were more fully impressed with a conviction of the awfulness, and, at the same time, the consolation of revealed religion; and considering the active career of his life, there were not many men of such affairs who could give a better account of the faith that was in them.” He lived to a good age, though his life was shortened by extensive ossification of the heart. On the afternoon of the Sunday before his death, he was engaged in drawing up an epitaph on an old and faithful servant who had lived with him for thirty years, and who had been killed two days before by being thrown from a cart. Mr. Marryat felt this bereavement acutely. On the following Monday, 24th January 1824, he was in his office in Mansionhouse Street, and died suddenly while in the act of writing a frank. The Prime Minister, the Earl of Liverpool, by letter, condoled with Lloyd’s committee on “the loss of a man of so much excellence and worth.” He had nine children, of whom two are on record, (1) Joseph and (2) Frederick.
The eldest son, Joseph Marryat, is also on record as M.P. for Sandwich. He did not immediately succeed his father as a representative of that cinque port; on 10th February 1724, at the requisite bye-election, the return was ”Henry Bonham, Esq., vice Joseph Marryat, Esq., deceased.” But at the next General Election, on 10th January 1826, he was elected. On the accession of William IV. there was a dissolution of Parliament, and Mr. Marryat was re-elected on 31st July 1830. On the 15th November, on a motion for the revision of the Civil List, the Duke of Wellington’s ministry was defeated by a majority of 233 to 204, and the era of Earl Grey and debates on the Reform Bill followed. Mr. Marryat adopted an opposite line of politics from that of his deceased father, and supported the Bill. On 21st March 1831, the second reading was carried by a majority of one, the numbers being 302 to 301, Mr. Marryat as much as any other member being entitled to be regarded as the glorious one. The ministry having a few days thereafter been defeated in the House of Commons by a majority of eight, another dissolution of Parliament was the result, Mr. Marryat was again re-elected for Sandwich on 4th May 1831. In this Parliament the Bill passed the House of Commons by a majority (tellers included) of 347 to 238, and Mr. Marryat’s name appears in the majority in a large sheet printed and published for framing. This majority did not prevent the House of Lords from rejecting the Bill, which did not become law till 1832, the House of Commons having again passed it by a majority of 355 to 239. Parliament was dissolved in December, in order that an election might take place under the Reform Act; on the 12th of that month Mr. Marryat was elected by the enlarged constituency of Sandwich. This Parliament was of short duration. Earl Grey having been succeeded as Prime Minister by Viscount Melbourne in 1834, the King summoned Sir Robert Peel to form a new ministry, by whose advice a dissolution took place. Thereafter Mr. Marryat’s name disappeared from lists of the House of Commons.
The second son of the senior Joseph Marryat was Captain Frederick Marryat, of the Royal Navy. He was born in London on 10th July 1792, and was named after his American grandfather. He entered the Navy on 23d September 1816, his first ship being the Imperieuse (44), commanded by Lord Cochrane, in which he served till 1809, having taken part in more than fifty-three sea-fights. In cutting out a ship of the enemy at the Bay of Arcupon, he was very severely wounded; he was carried down in a state of insensibility, and was pronounced to be dead, until he ​faintly whispered, by way of refutation, “You are a liar.” He repeatedly signalised himself by jumping overboard and saving the lives of drowning men. He was promoted to be Lieutenant in 1812, and joined H.M.S. Espiegle. But after an unsuccessful effort to save a drowning sailor, he burst a blood-vessel, and was sent home invalided. He returned to active service in 18 14, and became a Commander in the next year. Peace followed, and he did not rise to the rank of a Post-Captain until 1825. In that year he was made a Companion of the Bath (C.B.), and was also decorated with the medal of the Royal Humane Society. Not being wedded to the past like his father, he openly condemned the press-gang, and was in advance of our sailor-king who, in consequence, it is said, refused him his smile, although he could not help being delighted with his nautical romances. By these he became famous, and will always be remembered, especially by “Peter Simple,” which was published in 1835. But he also gained much credit in more serious studies. He was a Fellow of the Royal and of the Linnean Societies. In 1837 he published “The Universal Code of Signals for the Mercantile Marine of all Nations,” for which valuable work Louis Philippe, King of the French, made him a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour, and sent him the Gold Cross of that Order of Knighthood. (There is an edition published in 1869, edited by G. B. Richardson.) He visited America, and printed two series in six volumes of a work, entitled “A Diary in America, with Remarks on its Institutions,” London, 1839. He married Catharine, daughter of Sir Stephen Shairp. His son, Lieutenant Marryat, perished in the wreck of H.M.S. Avenger, in February 1842. Captain Marryat died on the 2d of August 1848.