Return Home and Later Life
On his homeward voyage he was captured by the French and carried to St. Malo, where he was liberated on parole. The usual offer of twenty seamen in exchange for a colonel was refused by the French, and Romer returned to England to negotiate for an exchange. The Board of Ordnance suggested that the French might accept the Marquis de Levy, taken in the HMS Salisbury, or Chevalier Nangis.
In September 1707 Romer visited Düsseldorf, carrying a letter of recommendation from Queen Anne to the Elector Palatine. In 1708, his exchange having been effected, he was employed in designing defences for Portsmouth, which were submitted to the Board of Ordnance in the following year, and in the construction of Blockhouse Fort at the entrance of Portsmouth Harbour. He continued in charge of the Portsmouth defences, occasionally visiting other fortified towns, such as Harwich, which he reported on in 1710, and places in Flanders, until his death in 1713. He was buried at Düsseldorf, where he had some property. His son John Lambertus Romer (1680–1754) followed him into a career as a military engineer, and served in Scotland.
Read more about this topic: Wolfgang William Romer
Famous quotes containing the words return, home and/or life:
“Live within your means, never be in debt, and by husbanding your money you can always lay it out well. But when you get in debt you become a slave. Therefore I say to you never involve yourself in debt, and become no man’s surety. If your friend is in distress, aid him if you have the means to spare. If he fails to be able to return it, it is only so much lost.”
—Andrew Jackson (1767–1845)
“When cats run home and light is come,
And dew is cold upon the ground,
And the far-off stream is dumb,
And the whirring sail goes round,
And the whirring sail goes round;
Alone and warming his five wits,
The white owl in the belfry sits.”
—Alfred Tennyson (1809–1892)
“I agree that we should work and prolong the functions of life as far as we can, and hope that Death may find me planting my cabbages, but indifferent to him and still more to the unfinished state of my garden.”
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)