a tall and high spirited young man of eighteen, it is not surprising that he deemed such a punishment unnecessarily degrading to the feelings of an officer, and which has since been very properly abolished.  Had it not been for this circumstance, it is the opinion of a naval officer of high rank, that Savery Brock would have distinguished himself and risen to eminence in the navy during the late revolutionary wars.  Some little time after this affair, being in Guernsey, he wished to go to England, and was offered a passage in the Amazon, frigate, Captain Reynolds, afterwards Rear-Admiral Reynolds, who perished in the St. George, of 98 guns, on her return from the Baltic, in 1811.  The Amazon, bound to Portsmouth, left the roadstead late in the afternoon, and before she was clear of the small Russel—­a dangerous passage—­night overtook her.  By some accident the pilot mistook the bearings, owing to the darkness and thick weather.  Savery Brock, being acquainted with the intricate course, was on the fore yard looking out, when he suddenly espied some rocks towards which the frigate was steering.  There was no time for communication, and, without hesitating an instant, he cried out in true nautical style:  “H-a-r-d up, h-a-r-d up.”  “H-a-r-d up it is,” replied the helmsman.  “H-a-r-d up,” repeated Savery in a louder key.  “Gently, young man,” said the captain, who was standing forward.  The ship fortunately bore away just in time to clear the rocks, and was thus saved by the prompt interference of her passenger.  We have often heard him in his latter days tell the story with excusable pride, and he especially remembered how the crew pointed him out the next morning to each other, as the young man who had got the ship out of her danger.  As he was without employment, his brother Isaac subsequently procured him the paymastership of the 49th, which he retained only three or four years, the office being one quite unfitted to his previous education and active mind.  In 1808, his military zeal induced him to serve for a short time as an amateur aide-de-camp to Sir John Moore, on the Peninsula.  He married and settled in Guernsey; and whether as a militia colonel, or in the exercise of a generous hospitality, or, above all, as a projector and zealous promoter of many public improvements in his native island, his memory will long live in the recollection of its inhabitants.

When Kean performed in Guernsey, two or three years before his appearance on the London boards, Savery Brock was enthusiastic in his admiration, and predicted the future eminence of that celebrated tragedian, in whose memoirs his name is gratefully mentioned.

FOOTNOTES: 

[Footnote 2:  With a slight variation, the field being gules instead of azure.  Motto, Vincit Veritas.]

[Footnote 3:  Translation from the French by Lord Berners, vol. 2, chap. 39, 40.  London Edition, 1815.]

[Footnote 4:  The name of this ancient family, second to none in wealth and station, became extinct in Guernsey, in 1810, on the death of Osmond De Beauvoir, Esq., when his large property was inherited by distant relatives.—­Duncan’s History of Guernsey.]