“ WRAXALL, SIR NATHANIEL WILLIAM (1751–1831) , English author, was born in Queen’s Square, Bristol, on the 8th of April 1751. He was the son of a Bristol merchant, Nathaniel Wraxall, and his wife Anne, great niece of Sir James Thornhill the painter. He entered the employment of the East India Company in 1769, and served as judge-advocate and paymaster during the expeditions against Guzerat and Baroche in 1771. In the following year he left the service of the company and returned to Europe. ”

“ In this year he published his Memoirs of the Kings of France of the Race of Valois, to which he appended an account of his tour in the Western, Southern and Interior Provinces of France. In 1778 he went again on his travels to Germany and Italy, and accumulated materials for his Memoirs of the Courts of Berlin, Dresden, Warsaw and Vienna (1799) . In 1780 he entered parliament and sat till 1794 for Hinton in Wiltshire, Ludgershall and Wallingford, in succession. ”

“ He visited Portugal and was presented to the court, of which he gives a curious account in his Historical Memoirs; and in the N. of Europe he made the acquaintance of several Danish nobles who had been exiled for their support of the deposed Queen Caroline Matilda, sister of George III. Wraxall at their suggestion undertook to endeavour to persuade the king to act on her behalf. ”