Page:The Life and Correspondence of Major-General Sir Isaac Brock - 1847.djvu/20

4 India, which was than considered a great under· taking. As he was possessed of much activity of mind and considerable talent, his death was an irreparable loss to his children, who were of an age to require all the care and counsels of a father; the eldest, John, having only completed his scventeentl1 year. They were left in independent, if not in ailin- ent, circumstances; but the fond indulgence of a widowed mother, who could deny them no enj0y· ment, tended, notwithsatndiug their long minority, to diminish their patrimony. Isaac Brock. the eighth son, was born in the parish of St. Peter-Port, Guernsey, on the (ith of October, 1769, the memorable year which gave birth to Napoleon and \Vellingt0n. In his boyhood he was like his brothers, unusually tall, robust, and preco- cious; and, with an appearance much beyond his age, ` remarkable in his own family chiefly for extreme gentleness. He was, however, considered by his I schoolfellows as the best swimmer and boxer in the school; and he used to swim from the mainland of Guernsey to Castle Cornet, a distance each Way of nearly half a mile. This feat is the more difficult from the strong tides which run between the passage. In his eleventh year he was sent to school at South- ampton, and his education was conclndedhy his being placed for a. twelvemonth under a French Protestant clergyman at Rotterdam, for the purpose of learning the French language. His eldest brother, John, a lieutenant in the Sth, the Kingls, regiment, ” being promoted to a company by purchase, Isaac succeeded, also by purchase, to the ensigncy which consequently became vacant in that regiment, and to r [ which he was appointed on the 2d of March, 178-5, soon after he had completed his fifteenth year. He ’ joined in England, and was quartered there in dif- ferent places for a few years. [Having entered the army at so early an age, he happily felt sensible of his deficiencies of education; and for a long period