Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 06.djvu/393

 Brodie pointed to the Merlin sloop in the West Indies, and for about four years was repeatedly engaged with French and Spanish cruisers and privateers, several of which he captured and brought in. In one of these encounters he lost his right arm. Early in 1747 Rear-admiral Knowles appointed him acting captain of the Canterbury; but he was not confirmed in that rank till 9 March 1747-8, when, after the capture of Port Louis, he was appointed to the Strafford. In this ship he was present at the unsuccessful attempt on Santiago, and had a distinguished share in the battle off Havana on 1 Oct. 1748, when the one prize of victory, the Conquistador, struck to the Strafford. In the courts-martial which followed [see ] Brodie's evidence told strongly against the admiral's accusers; he maintained that the admiral had done his duty throughout. In 1750 Brodie was compelled to memorialise the admiralty, representing himself as incapacitated from further service, and praying for some mark of the royal favour. In 1753 he presented another and stronger memorial to the same effect, consequent on which a pension was granted to him. Nevertheless in 1762, on the declaration of war with Spain, he applied to the admiralty for a command. His application was not accepted, and accordingly when, in 1778, his seniority seemed to entitle him to flag rank, he was passed over as not having served 'during the last war.' This was then the standing rule, and was in no way exceptional to Brodie, although in his case, as in many others, it fell harshly on old officers of good service. On 5 March 1787 Brodie's claims were brought up in the House of Commons, and he was represented as a much-injured man, deprived of the promotion to which he was justly entitled. The house negatived the motion made in Brodie's favour. The case, however, led to a modification of the rule, and from that time captains who were not eligible for promotion when their turn arrived were distinctly placed on a superannuated list. Brodie died in 1787, and was buried in the Abbey Church at Bath.

[Naval Chronicle, iii. 81.]

 BRODIE, GEORGE (1786?–1867), historian, was born about 1786 in East Lothian, where his father was a farmer on a large scale, and a contributor to the improvement of Scottish husbandry. Educated at the high school and university of Edinburgh, he became in 1811 a member of the Faculty of Advocates. He seems to have done little at the bar. He was an ardent whig, and his political creed partly inspired the one work by which he is known, his 'History of the British Empire from the accession of Charles the First to the Restoration, with an introduction tracing the progress of society and of the Constitution from the feudal times to the opening of the history, and including a particular examination of Mr. Hume's statements relative to the character of the English government.' The 'statements' which Brodie undertook to refute were chiefly those in which Hume found precedents for the claims of the Stuarts in the action of the Tudor sovereigns. Brodie's history was by far the most elaborate assault on the Stuarts and their apologists, especially Hume and Clarendon, and the most thoroughgoing vindication of the puritans, that had then appeared. It was not of high historical value. It was reviewed in the 'Edinburgh Review' for March 1824, probably by John Allen of Holland House celebrity (see Lord Jeffrey's letter to him in 's Life of Jeffrey, 2nd ed. 1852, ii. 217). While generally laudatory, the reviewer censured Brodie's indiscriminating partisanship. Guizot has expressed his surprise that so passionate a partisan should have written with so little animation (Preface to the Histoire de la Revolution d'Angleterre, 4th ed. 1860, i. 15).

In the Scotch agitation for the first Reform Bill, Brodie presided at a very numerous gathering of the working-men of Edinburgh held on Arthur's Seat in November 1831 against the rejection of the bill by the peers. In 1836 he was appointed historiographer of Scotland, with a salary of 180l, a year. In 1866 appeared a second edition of his History, with the original title slightly expanded into 'A Constitutional History of the British Empire,' &c. Besides the History, Brodie published an edition of Stair's 'Institutes of the Law of Scotland, with commentaries and a supplement as to mercantile law.' Lord Cockburn says of it and him (Journal, 1874, ii. 113): 'His edition of Stair is a deep and difficult legal book. His style is bad, and his method not good.' Brodie was also author of a pamphlet entitled 'Strictures on the Appellate Jurisdiction of the House of Lords,' 1856. He died in London on 22 Jan. 1867.

 BRODIE, PETER BELLINGER (1778–1854), conveyancer, was born at Winterslow, Wiltshire, on 20 Aug. 1778, being the eldest son of the Rev. Peter Bellinger Brodie, rector of Winterslow 1742-1804, who died 19 March 1804, by his marriage in 1775 with