Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 06.djvu/400

 Broke of the first gun being fired by the Shannon the American colours on board the Chesapeake were hauled down, and the English colours hoisted in their stead.

The apparently easy capture of the Chesapeake, a ship of the same nominal force but larger, with more men and a heavier armament than the Shannon, created a remarkable sensation both in America and in England. The true significance of the action has been pointed out by a French writer of our own time. 'Captain Broke,' he says, 'had commanded the Shannon for nearly seven years ; Captain Lawrence had commanded the Chesapeake for but a few days. The Shannon had cruised for eighteen months on the coast of America ; the Chesapeake was newly out of harbour. The Shannon had a crew long accustomed to habits of strict obedience ; the Chesapeake was manned by men who had just been engaged in mutiny. The Americans were wrong to accuse fortune on this occasion. Fortune was not fickle, she was merely logical. The Shannon captured the Chesapeake on 1 June 1813 ; but on 14 Sept. 1806, when he took command of his frigate, Captain Broke had begun to prepare the glorious termination to this bloody affair' (, Guerres Maritimes, ii. 272). This it is which constitutes Broke's true title to distinction ; for the easy capture of the Chesapeake, which rendered him famous, was due to his care, forethought, and skill, much more than to that exuberant courage which caught the popular fancy, and which has handed down his name in the song familiar to every schoolboy as 'brave Broke.'

Honours and congratulations were showered upon him. He was made a baronet 25 Sept. 1813, and K.C.B. 3 Jan. 1815 ; but, with the exception of taking the Shannon home in the autumn of 1813, his brilliant exploit was the end of his active service. The terrible wound on the head had left him subject to nervous pains, which were much aggravated by a severe fall from his horse on 8 Aug. 1820, and although not exactly a valetudinarian, his health was far from robust, and his sufferings were at times intense. He became in course of seniority a rear-admiral on 22 July 1830, and died in London, whither he had gone for medical advice, on 2 Jan. 1841. His remains were carried to Broke Hall, and were interred in the parish church of Nacton. He had a numerous family, many members of which died young. The eldest son, who succeeded to the baronetcy, died unmarried in 1855; the fourth son, the present baronet (who has taken from his mother's family the name of Middleton), has no children, and at his death the title will become extinct. Two daughters of a still younger son are the sole representatives in the second generation of the captor of the Chesapeake ; the younger of these is married to Sir Lambton Loraine, bart., captain R.N. ; the other to the Hon. James St. Vincent Saumarez, eldest son of Lord de Saumarez, and grandson of the first lord, Nelson's companion in arms. Both have issue.

[Brighton's Memoir of Admiral Sir P. B. V. Broke, Bart., K.C.B., compiled 'chiefly from Journals and Letters in the possession of Rear-admiral Sir George Broke-Middleton, C.B. ;' notes contributed by Sir George Broke-Middleton ; Roosevelt's Naval War of 1812.] 

BROKE or BROOKE, RICHARD (d. 1529), chief baron of the exchequer, was fourth son of Thomas Broke of Leighton in Cheshire, and his wife, daughter and heiress of John Parker of Copnall. His ancestors had been Brokes of Leighton since the twelfth century, and came of a common stock with the Brookes of Norton. On 11 July 1510 (Pat. 2 Hen. VIII, p. 2, m. 2, and S.B.) he obtained a royal exemption from becoming serjeant-at-law, an honour then conferred only on barristers of at least sixteen years practice at the bar. Perhaps he was deterred, as others had been (, Orig. p. 110), by the great expenses attending the promotion ; but he did not long avail himself of his privilege, he being one of the nine Serjeants appointed in the following November. He was double reader in his inn, the Middle Temple, in the autumn of 1510, and must have passed his first readership before 1502, at which date Dugdale's list of readers commences. In the spring of 1511 (2 Hen. VIII), from under-sheriffhe became recorder of London, an office he filled till 1520. Foss says he represented the city of London in the parliaments of 1511 and 1515, the returns of members to which parliaments are stated to be 'not found' in the House of Lords' Report. In the parliament of 1523 he was one of the triers of petitions. In June 1519 he appears as a junior justice of assize for the Norfolk circuit. He became a judge of the common pleas and knight in 1520 (fines levied Easter, 12 Hen. VIII), and chief baron of the exchequer on 24 Jan. 1526 (Com. de Term. Hill., 17 Hen. VIII, Rot. 1), and continued in both offices till his death in May or June 1529. As serjeant, and afterwards as judge, his name appears in many commissions for the home and Norfolk circuits. His will, dated 6 May 1529, was proved on 2 July 1529 by his widow, daughter of ___ Ledes, by whom he left three sons, Robert (afterwards of