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Harper's Encyclopedia of United States History (ed. Benson Lossing), Matthews, Edward 1729-1805 (search)
of deposit of Virginia agricultural productions, especially tobacco. They captured and burned not less than 130 merchant vessels in the James and Elizabeth rivers, an unfinished Continental frigate on the stocks at Portsmouth, and eight ships-ofwar on the stocks at Gosport, a short distance above Portsmouth, where the Virginians had established a navy-yard. So sudden and powerful was the attack, that very little resistance was made by Fort Nelson, below Portsmouth, or by the Virginia militia. Matthews carried away or destroyed a vast amount of tobacco and other property, estimated, in the aggregate, at $2,000,000. Afterwards he assisted in the capture of Verplanck's and Stony Point. Appointed major-general, he was stationed at or near New York, and returned to England in 1780; was commander-in-chief of the forces in the West Indies in 1782, and the next year was governor of Grenada and the Caribbean Islands. In 1797 he became a general. He died in Hants, England, Dec. 26, 1805.