_Admiral Keppel ... Vice Admiral Sir Hugh Palliser._ Augustus Keppel
(1725-1786), second son of the second Earl of Albemarle; M.P. for
Windsor; Admiral of the Blue and Commander-in-Chief of the Grand Fleet,
1778; cr. Viscount Keppel, 1782. Sir Hugh Palliser (1723-1796), first
Baronet; M.P. for Scarborough and a Lord of the Admiralty; Vice-Admiral
of the Blue, 1778.
The allusions are to the indecisive action off Ushant between the Channel
fleet under Keppel, with Palliser as third in command, and the Brest
fleet under D’Orvilliers, 27 July 1778; see Introduction, p. 10. On the
third day of the session an altercation broke out in the House of Commons
between the two admirals, and a few days later Palliser applied to his
colleagues at the Admiralty Board for a court-martial on Keppel. After
a protracted trial the court declared Palliser’s charges “malicious
and ill-founded.” This verdict so delighted the populace that street
riots ensued in which the Admiralty was attacked and Palliser’s house
in Pall-Mall was gutted. Palliser was obliged to resign all his public
appointments. See Sir G. O. Trevelyan, _George the Third and Charles
James Fox: The Concluding Part of the American Revolution_, New York,
1912-14, I, ch. v.
_Philip Stevens, Esq._ Philip Stephens (1723-1809), M.P. for Sandwich and
First Secretary to the Admiralty; cr. a baronet, 1795.