The Life of Admiral Viscount Exmouth

The Life of Admiral Viscount Exmouth is credited to Edward Osler. The preface says it is the wisdom of those to whom England will hereafter commit the honour of her Flag to study well the example of the great sea-officers whose services illustrate the annals of their country. A dedication reads to the navy, the bulwark of their country, with the work most respectfully inscribed.

The text says that in 1652 a man married Constance Langford, daughter of Edward Langford, Esq., a gentleman descended from a considerable family in Wiltshire. The text says a man died in 1765, leaving six children, four of them boys, of whom the eldest was at that time eleven years old, and Lord Exmouth, the second, only eight. Sir E. Pellew is described as never a man to commit himself rashly to what he had not well considered, and the text quotes him as saying that there is always uncertainty in naval actions, for a chance shot may place the best managed ship in the power of an inferior opponent.