Lot Essay
Edward Pellew (1757-1833) was born into an old but impoverished Cornish family. The patronage of Lord Falmouth served him well throughout his early life. At the age of thirty-six when in command of the frigate Nymphe he captured the French frigate Cléopatra, the first success of the French Revolutionary War, for which he was knighted. He was successively made a baronet in 1796 and a peer in 1816 after his capture of Algiers in that year. He retired a Vice Admiral in 1821, dying in 1833.