[Illustration:  Portrait of colonel James Fitzgibbon]

In the ranks of the 49th was a young Irishman of superior talents.  Brock was not slow to discover his abilities, and “with a discrimination that honoured both,” he later appointed this combative private sergeant-major.  Still later he procured him an ensigncy in the 49th, finally appointing him adjutant, promotion that the ability and gallantry of James FitzGibbon, a Canadian veteran of 1812, and the “hero of Beaver Dams” (Adjutant-General of Canada, 1837, and Military Knight of Windsor, 1851), amply justified.

If Brock was quick to appreciate merit, he was no less so in detecting defects.  The Russian soldiers came in for scathing criticism.  The type at Egmont impressed him most unfavourably.  The clumsy Russian foot-soldier was his special aversion.  The accuracy of his criticism has been confirmed by military writers, but this book is not for the purpose of weighing the quality of Russian valour in Holland.  Six thousand of these Russian allies, the lateness of the season preventing their return home, were later quartered for six months in Guernsey.

While our hero was a severe military critic, he was never an unjust one, neither did he spare his own men.  Though not a martinet, which was foreign to every fibre of his nature, he was a stickler for rigid discipline.  When the expedition was recalled, he was first quartered in Norwich, and then at the old familiar barracks of St. Helier, in Jersey.  On his return to the latter place, in 1800, after leave of absence, he found that the junior lieutenant-colonel of the 49th—­Colonel Sheaffe—­had incurred the reasonable dislike of the men.  The regiment was drawn up on the sands for morning parade, standing at ease.  In company with this unpopular officer Brock appeared upon the scene.  He was greeted with three hearty cheers.  The personal honour, however, was lost sight of in the act of disobedience.  Rebuking the men severely for “their most unmilitary conduct,” they were marched to quarters and confined to barracks for a week.  He would not, he explained, allow public exaltation of himself at the expense of another.

The next year found our hero in the Baltic Sea, aboard the Ganges, detailed for active duty as second in command of the land forces that under Lord Nelson were ordered to the attack on Copenhagen.  It was intended that Brock, with the 49th, should lead in storming the Trekroner (Three Crown) battery, in conjunction with five hundred seamen; but the heroic defence by the Danes rendered the attempt impracticable, and Brock remained on the Ganges, an unwilling spectator of bloodshed in which he took no part.  Towards the close of the engagement—­the heaviest pounding match in history—­he was on the Elephant, Nelson’s flagship, and saw the hero of Trafalgar write his celebrated letter to the Crown Prince of Denmark.