'In transmitting to your Lordship this honourable testimony of the gratitude of your country, I cannot withhold the expression of my own personal satisfaction that this age of military exploits has not closed without so splendid an increase of our naval glory; and that the great work, of which all Christian States had so long and justly desired to see the accomplishment, has been performed with a display of skill and valour which have enrolled your Lordship's name upon the annals of the nation in the most distinguished rank of her naval commanders.' Pellew had now attained the summit of his ambition; and, in 1817, having been appointed to the naval command at Plymouth,[128] was instrumental in saving from destruction the historic fortress of Pendennis Castle, which, from motives of economy, the Government of the day had proposed to destroy. He passed the close of his life quietly near Teignmouth, the only additional honour which was bestowed upon him being that of his appointment, in 1832, as Vice-Admiral of England, a post which, however, he only filled for a few months; for, on the 23rd of January, 1833, in the seventy-sixth year of his age, the old sea lion calmly passed away, in pious confidence, to his rest. A brother officer who was often with him during his last hours, said, 'I have seen him great in battle, but never _so_ great as on his death-bed.' He was buried at Christow, the parish in which are the family mansion and estate of Canonteign; and in the church there an elaborate marble monument records his faith and piety, his honours and his virtues. There are three or four good portraits of Pellew, of which the three-quarter length by Northcote in the National Portrait Gallery is perhaps the best. It gives the unmistakably Cornish physiognomy of the original, and does full justice to the determined look of the lower part of his face. It was exhibited at the Royal Academy Exhibition at Somerset House in 1819, when Pellew was sixty-two years of age. Another fine portrait is by Sir Wm. Beechy (engraved by C. Turner), a full-length, representing the hero on the deck of the _Queen Charlotte_ at the siege of Algiers, giving orders for furling her mainsail, when she was in imminent danger of being set on fire by an Algerine vessel, which was in flames close by. FOOTNOTES: [122] Polwhele says that he stood in great awe of Ned Pellew, who, _he believes_, 'once thrashed him.' [123] Polwhele says that Pellew lived in the house where his own mother and grandmother had resided. [124] The _Cleopatra's_ crew numbered 320, the _Nymphe's_ only 240. [125] Admiral Reynolds was afterwards drowned in the Baltic, in the _St. George_, on Christmas Day, 1811. One of the writer's uncles, William Hawken, a Truro boy, and an excellent swimmer, who was a midshipman on board, was also, with many others, drowned.--W. H. T. [126] Pellew had four sons and two daughters.