Thomas Ashe (1770–1835) was an Irish novelist and miscellaneous writer.

Biography

Ashe was the third son of a

half-pay Half-pay (h.p.) was a term used in the British Army and Royal Navy of the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries to refer to the pay or allowance an officer received when in retirement or not in actual service. Past usage United Kingdom In the E ...

officer, and was born at

Glasnevin Glasnevin (, also known as ''Glas Naedhe'', meaning "stream of O'Naeidhe" after a local stream and an ancient chieftain) is a neighbourhood of Dublin, Ireland, situated on the River Tolka. While primarily residential, Glasnevin is also home to ...

, near Dublin, 15 July 1770. He received a commission in the 83rd regiment of foot, which, however, was almost immediately afterwards disbanded; and he was sent to a counting-house at

Bordeaux Bordeaux ( ; ; Gascon language, Gascon ; ) is a city on the river Garonne in the Gironde Departments of France, department, southwestern France. A port city, it is the capital of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, as well as the Prefectures in F ...

. There he suffered a short imprisonment for wounding in a

duel A duel is an arranged engagement in combat between two people with matched weapons. During the 17th and 18th centuries (and earlier), duels were mostly single combats fought with swords (the rapier and later the small sword), but beginning in ...

a gentleman whose sister he had seduced, but, the wound not proving fatal, the prosecution was not persisted in. Returning to Dublin, Ashe was appointed secretary to the Diocesan and Endowed Schools Commission, but, getting into debt, resigned his office and retired to Switzerland. He then spent several years in foreign travel, living, according to his own account,Memoirs and Confessions, 3 vols. 1815 in a free and unconstrained fashion, and experiencing a somewhat chequered fortune. In his later years Ashe was short of money. He died at Bath on 17 December 1835.

Works

Besides recording in his ''Memoirs'' his impressions of the countries he visited, Ashe published separately:
''Travels in America in 1806, for the Purpose of Exploring the rivers Alleghany, Monongahela, Ohio and Mississippi...''
1808; * ''Memoirs of

Mammoth A mammoth is any species of the extinct elephantid genus ''Mammuthus.'' They lived from the late Miocene epoch (from around 6.2 million years ago) into the Holocene until about 4,000 years ago, with mammoth species at various times inhabi ...

and other Bones found in the vicinity of the

Ohio Ohio ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Lake Erie to the north, Pennsylvania to the east, West Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, Indiana to the ...

'', 1806 * ''A Commercial and Geographical Sketch of Brazil and

Madeira Madeira ( ; ), officially the Autonomous Region of Madeira (), is an autonomous Regions of Portugal, autonomous region of Portugal. It is an archipelago situated in the North Atlantic Ocean, in the region of Macaronesia, just under north of ...

'', 1812.
''History of the Azores, Or Western Islands Containing an Account of the Government, Laws and Religion, the Manners, Ceremonies, and Character of the Inhabitants and Demonstrating the Importance of These Valuable Islands to the British Empire''
1813. He was also the author of novels, including the ''Spirit of the Book'', 1811, 4th edition 1812; the ''Liberal Critic, or Henry Percy'', 1812: and the ''Soldier of Fortune'', 1816.

Notes

References

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Ashe, Thomas People from Glasnevin 1770 births 1835 deaths 18th-century Irish novelists 19th-century Irish novelists 19th-century Irish travel writers Irish male novelists 19th-century Irish male writers Writers from Dublin (city) Irish duellists