Candide Candide. Born François-Marie Arouet, Voltaire (1694–1778), by the time of the Lisbon earthquake, was already a well-established author, known for his satirical wit. He had been made a member of the Académie Française in 1746. He was a deist, a strong proponent of religious freedom, and a critic of tyrannical governments. "Candide" became part of his large, diverse body of philosophical, political and artistic works expressing these views. More specifically, it was a model for the eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century novels called the "contes philosophiques". This genre, of which Voltaire was one of the founders, included previous works of his
HMS Firebrand (1694) HMS Firebrand (1694) Firebrand was a Royal Navy fireship built at Limehouse in 1694, the first Royal Naval vessel to bear the name. "Firebrand" served in the Caribbean and Mediterranean. She is recorded as convoying five merchantmen in company with "Winchester" near Barbados in March 1695. "Firebrand" was lost during the Scilly naval disaster of 1707 when a navigational error sent Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell's fleet through dangerous reefs west of Cornwall while on their way from Gibraltar to Portsmouth. On the night of 22 October 1707, "Firebrand", commanded by Captain Francis Percy, smashed into the Outer Gilstone Rock off