Seventh Baron and First Earl Digby. Mr. Digby entered the English Navy "in 1744, and attained the rank of post-captain in 1755. It was with him that the Duke of Clarence commenced his professional career. He commanded the Ramilies, one of the leading ships in the indecisive action between Admiral Keppel and Orvilliers in 1778, and in 1780 was second in command to Admiral Rodney in the glorious engagement with Don Juan de Langara, off Cape St. Vincent."* In 1781 Digby, now RearAdmiral of the Red, received a commission for commanding in North America, where he arrived September 24, with the Prince George of 98, Canada of 74, and Lion of 64 guns, accompanied by Prince William Henry, afterwards King William IV. of England, then a Midshipman in the Royal Navy, and was about to attack the fleet of the Count de Grasse, acting under Admiral Graves (whom he was unwilling immediately to relieve), when news was brought them, near Cape Charles, of the surrender of Lord Cornwallis some days before. Graves soon afterwards sailing, agreebly to his instructions, to the West Indies, Admiral Digby, in obedience to his orders, took command on our coast. According to Lady Minto, the alliance of Mrs. Jauncey with Admiral Digby, gave great satisfaction to her family; and William Eden, subsequently First Lord Auckland, who m. Mr. Elliot's niece Eleanor, daughter of Sir Gilbert Elliot, Third Baronet, wrote thus on this occasion: "The Admiral is a good man, and as rich as Pactolus; he does not consider a set of features of the tincture of a complexion as essential ingredients in matrimony. Mr. Andrew Elliot has had luck in the marriages of Lady Cathcart, Lady Carnegie, and Mrs. Digby. I am glad of it, for he has great merits."§ Hereafter Mrs. Digby resided in England, although

of Admiral Digby. married Alexander Hugh Baring, Fourth Lord Ashburton, great-great-grandson of Thomas Willing and his wife Anne McCall, cousin-german to Mrs. Digby, a descendant of Jöran Kyn already memtioned (317).

* The Gentleman's Magazine, vol. lxxxiv. pt. i. p. 412.

† See The Political Magazine for MDCCLXXXIV., vol. vi. pp. 20 et seq., an extract from which, relating to Admiral Digby, is given in Letters and Papers, etc., p. xciv., note.

One of the Royal Commissioners for restoring peace in America, appointed in 1778.

§ A Memoir of the Right Honourable Hugh Elliot, by the Countess of Minto, p. 296 (Edinburgh, 1868). Governor Elliot's daughter by his second wife, Elizabeth Plumsted, Elizabeth Elliot married William Schaw, Tenth Baron Cathcart, afterwards Lieutenant-General in the English Army, and First Earl Cathcart: and his daughter Agnes Murray, also by his second wife, married Sir David Carnegie, Fourth Baronet, described by Lady Isabella Elliot, niece of Governor Elliot, as "a Scotch gentleman of a very good character and large fortune," whose grandson Sir James Carnegie, Sixth

she "maintained for many years a constant and affectionate correspondence" with her intimate friend and cousin-german Mary Swift, daughter of Joseph and Margaret (McCall) Swift, of Philadelphia.* Robert Digby d. at his residence, Minterne Magna, county Dorset, England, February 25, 1814, "at a very advanced age, and senior Admiral of the Royal Navy." Mrs. Digby d. s. p.† at Minterne House, July 28, 1830.

5

161. JOSHUA CARPENTER, Son of Samuel and Mary (Yeates) Carpenter, was born in Philadelphia, Pa., February 2, 1720-1. On the death of his father and remarriage of his mother, he put himself under the guardianship of Joseph Richards and John Inglis, who had recently married his cousin-german Catharine McCall. At the division of his father's estate, in 1746, he received, with other property, Mr. Samuel Carpenter's mansion on the north side of Chestnut Street, between Sixth and Seventh Streets, which, since 1738, had been rented to, and occupied by, the Honorable George Thomas, Lieutenant-Governor of Pennsylvania. This was afterwards sold by Mr. Carpenter. Land was purchased by him in the counties of

Baronet, was restored to the peerage in 1855 as Earl of Southesk. Lord Cathcart was an officer in the army of Sir William Howe, and chief of the "Knights of the Blended Rose" in the famous "Meschianza," given in honour of him and Admiral Lord Howe at Philadelphia in May, 1778.

* Letters and Papers, etc., p. xci. A portrait of Mrs. Digby, taken whilst a child, by West, is owned by the family of her cousin the late Mr. Joseph Swift; and a miniature of her, taken after she went to England to reside, was in the possession of her kinsman, the late Edward Swift Buckley, of Philadelphia. Pictures representing different views of her husband's residence, painted by Robert Sherburne in 1790, are in the possession of the family of the late Mr. Swift.

† Mr. Brown, in The Jaunceys of New York, p. 19, and Mr. de Lancey, in his edition of Jones's History of New York, vol. i. p. 665, err in making the notorious Lady Ellenborough the daughter of Admiral Robert Digby. She was the daughter of his nephew, Sir Henry Digby, G. C. B., also an Admiral in the English Navy. (See Burke's Peerage, under "Digby.")

It was, at one time, the residence of Doctor Græme, son-in-law of Lieutenant-Governor Sir William Keith. In 1761, says Watson, it belonged to John Ross, Esq., attorney-at-law, who then offered to sell it for £3000 to John Smith, Esq., who afterwards occupied it. Subsequently it became the property of the celebrated John Dickinson, who added a new front to it in 1774; and from him it passed into the hands of his brother General Philemon Dickinson, whose granddaughter, Mary Dickinson, married William Coleman McCall, M.D., a descendant of Jöran Kyn before mentioned.

New Castle, Kent, and Sussex on Delaware. Mr. Carpenter married, in Philadelphia, December 10, 1743, Armgott,* daughter of John Johnson, of Philadelphia County, by his wife Christina, daughter of John and Armgott Skute, of Nitapkung, on the Schuylkill River, and granddaughter of Captain Sven Skute, of Sweden, a prominent officer and colonist of New Sweden. In his will Mr. Carpenter deDuring the War of Independence the building was used as a soldiers' hospital for the sick infantry of the Virginia and Pennsylvania lines. After this it became the splendid mansion of the French Ambassadors, Monsieur Gérard and the Chevalier de la Luzerne. The last inhabitant of the house was Chief-Justice William Tilghman who removed from it in 1826, when it was demolished to make room for the Arcade.

* This peculiarly Teutonic name appears in Christ Church Register (where the marriage is recorded) as "Orange," and in Mr. Carpenter's will is metamorphosed into "Olivia."

John Skute was born in New Sweden, September 4, 1654. He was a member and Vestryman of the Swedish Lutheran Congregation at Wicacoa, and, doubtless, was buried in Gloria Dei Churchyard. Armgott Skute survived him, dying at the Schuylkill, March 22, 1755, aged ninety-one years, and was buried in Gloria Dei Churchyard. Their daughter Christina was born September 4, 1687.

Sven Skute came to America with Governor Printz in 1643, and is mentioned in his second Report to the West India Company of Sweden, dated June 20, 1644, as Lieutenant in command of Fort Elfsborg, erected by that Governor the previous year near Varkens Kil, now Salem Creek, New Jersey. In November, 1648, he successfully opposed the settlement of the Dutch at Mastmaker's Hook on the Schuylkill River. In August, 1650, immediately on the receipt of the intelligence brought to New Amsterdam by Augustine Herman, grandfather of Ephraim Augustine Herman, Fourth Lord of Bohemia Manor, who married Isabella Trent great-granddaughter of Jöran Kyn-that the eighth Swedish expedition to the Delaware, under Commander Hans Amundson, had suffered shipwreck in the West Indies the year before, Lieutenant Skute was sent on a Dutch vessel to Sweden, with a letter to Peter Brahe, President of the Royal Council, from Governor Printz, and instructions to make "a good and satisfactory report" of the Colony. This duty was performed by him, and at a meeting of the Council, March 16, 1652, to which he was specially summoned, his account of the settlement aided in determining Queen Christina to order the fitting out of the ninth Swedish expedition to our river. In a document describing him in official language as "the honorable and brave Lieutenant Sven Schute," signed by his sovereign, August 20, 1653, he received the grant for himself, his wife, and heirs, of "a tract of country in New Sweden, embracing Mockorhuthigs Kyl, Alkarokungh, Kinsessing, and Aronametz Kyl, as far as the River, with the small Islands which lie adjacent, namely,

scribes himself as "gentleman." He died in August, 1764. Mrs. Carpenter survived him many years. They had at least three children:

Käringe and Kinsessing, together with Passuming, with the appurtenances thereunto belonging" (identified in Mr. Benjamin H. Smith's Atlas of Delaware County, Pennsylvania, pp. viii. and ix. (Philada., 1880)). On the 25th of the same month he was ordered by the College of Commerce, which then had charge of the Colony in America, to enlist fifty soldiers as emigrants, sending them to Stockholm, and afterwards to visit the Province of Värmland and Dal, and procure two hundred and fifty inhabitants of the forests willing to engage in the enterprise. This task was promptly accomplished, and December 13 he was commissioned Captain for New Sweden, with special command over the people he had secured for the settlement. February 2, 1654, he sailed from Gottenburg on Örnen, with Commissary Johan Rising, Engineer Peter Lindström, and three hundred and fifty colonists; and, after a somewhat adventurous voyage, during which the vessel stopped at France and England, the Canary Islands, and St. Christopher's, he arrived in Delaware Bay the 18th of the following May. The ship reached Sandhoeck three days later, when Captain Skute landed with four files of musketeers, and demanded the surrender of the Dutch Fort Casimir, then held by a small force under the command of Gerrit Bicker. Not receiving a definite answer, he took possession of the stronghold, which was named from the day of its capture (Trinity Sunday) "Trefaldighets Fort." On the 5th of June the territory granted him by Queen Christina was inspected by Rising and Lindström, and Passayung was found to be the place of residence of the most distinguished of the Indian sachems, who were not inclined to abandon their home. Other portions of the tract being claimed by Swedish freemen, the Commissary, now Governor, declined to put Skute in possession until the receipt of further instructions from Sweden. Still, as late as 1658 the legal title of the Captain to his land was recognized by Jacob Alrichs, Vice-Director of the Colony of the City of Amsterdam on the Delaware, although it was intimated by the latter to the Dutch Commissioners, that the proprietor would willingly dispose of his “ground-brief for a trifle, according to its value and worth." The following allusions to Skute occur in Rising's first Report to his superiors in Sweden, dated at Fort Christina, July 13, 1654: “As regards the government of the country, in accordance with the most gracious orders of Her Majesty the Queen, and the concessions of the College [of Commerce], when I found that the Governor [Printz] had departed hence. I associated with me as aids these excellent men, whom I conceived to be the most competent in the Colony, viz., Captain Sven Scuthe and Lieutenant Johan Pappegoija, with whose counsel and coöperation hitherto everything has been performed. Our state of war and defence is, in general, conducted like the rest; however, Captain Skuthe has to render an account of the ammunition, shot, and arms, and he is particularly busy, at present, strengthening Fort Trinity, which is like a key to the river.

416. MARY, b. September 23, 1751.

417. SAMUEL, b. August, 1752. He m., December 20, 1781, Mary, daughter of Christopher Roan, b. in Chester County, Pa., November 11, 1762. He d. in Philadelphia, November 15, 1810, and was bur. in Gloria Dei Churchyard. The Rev. Dr. Nicholas Collin notes in the records of that parish, "he had been ailing many years," and Further, if any position of Commander of Militia should be conferred, I desire, under favour, to state, he is considered a much more suitable person than Hans Amundson, and the majority of the officers here have said they will resign the service, if such a man assume command." Rather curiously, this judgment had been anticipated by Queen Christina, for in the document, dated at Upsala, February 28, 1654 (when Governor Printz's return to Europe had been learned by her Majesty), constituting Commissary Rising Provisional Governor of New Sweden, Skute was commissioned to replace Amundson over "the defence of the country and the forts," and the latter was forbidden "to have anything to do with that charge." The salary apportioned to the Captain in a budget for the following year is 432 daler silver, which was next to that of the Governor. At the second invasion of the Delaware by Director-General Peter Stuyvesant, in 1655, Skute was yet in command of Fort Trinity, which he was compelled to surrender, September 1, to the greatly superior force of the Dutch. The act subjected him to trial by court-martial before the Swedish Governor at Timber Island, September 24, when he denied the accusations brought against him, for which there is no evidence that he ever suffered punishment. Among the losses he sustained by the ravages of the Hollanders were damages to a plantation near the fort estimated at 100 florins. Unlike his fellow-officers Rising and Lindström he was content to remain in America. He was complained of, the following year, by Vice-Director Jean Paul Jacquet, for turbulence and secret intercourse with the savages, and was summonded to New Amsterdam. Under Dutch rule on the Delaware he still bore the title of Captain, and in that capacity met Director-General Stuyvesant at Tinicum, on a visit of the latter to our river in May, 1658. It is doubtful whether he was alive at the conquest of New Netherland by the English, in 1664, since no mention is made of him at that period. We know neither the name of his wife nor the number of his children. Besides his son John, however, he had a son Sven, born in 1653, and a daughter Magdalen, born in 1660, who married Peter Rambo, Jr., son of Peter Gunnarson Rambo, and uncle of Peter Rambo, who married, as already stated, Christina Keen. Watson errs, of course, in confounding his family with that of Sven Gunnarson, the ancestor of the Swansons, who obtained a patent from the Dutch ViceDirector Alexander d'Hinojossa for land in the vicinity of Wicacoa, Philadelphia, afterwards conveyed to William Penn. (For further references to Skute and other early Swedish settlers on the Delaware mentioned in this genealogy, see a chapter on New Sweden contributed by the writer to volume iv. of the Narrative and Critical History of America, edited by Mr. Justin Winsor, Librarian of Harvard University, and Corresponding Secretary of the Massachusetts Historical Society.)