Henry Raikes

BENEVOLENT EXERTIONS IN FAVOUR OF THE NEGRO AND HOTTENTOT POPULATION.—CAPTAIN EDWARD BRENTON’S PLAN FOR THE RESTORATION OF JUVENILE DELINQUENTS.—ITS CONNECTION WITH THE CAPE, AND FAILURE.—THE ESTABLISHMENT AT SIMON’S TOWN BROKEN UP AT THE DEATH OF BUONAPARTE.—RETURN TO ENGLAND.

The letter with which the last chapter was closed, is one of many that remain, and which might have been inserted in this Memoir with advantage, if it had not been desirable to restrain the size of a volume, which already exceeds its proposed dimensions; and if enough had not been already said, to answer the purpose for which their insertion might be desirable, the completion of the portraiture of the subject. The reader therefore is at liberty to infer from the tone of one letter, the character of the correspondence in general; and he may perhaps admit that it is one of the felicities of the age to see such a correspondence existing in such a quarter of the world. While men whose lot is cast in the extreme corner of Africa; that portion of our world, which has seemed throughout the history of man to have been resigned to barbarism; are found discussing such topics, and in such a spirit, the wilderness may indeed be said to blossom as a rose, and the desert is like the garden of the Lord.

But interesting and profitable as such communications must have been to both parties concerned, they were neither of them men likely to leave their talents unimproved, or to allow religious conviction to evaporate in religious discussions. They felt that the light they had received was to shine before men; and the love of Christ, the principle on which their whole mutual scheme of belief centred and moved, constrained them to live, not for themselves, but for others; and to evince the gratitude they felt for the mercy that had visited them, and the love which burnt within their own breasts towards Him who had made them what they were, by acts of kindness and benevolence to all around them.

We find Sir Jahleel accordingly at one time warmly interested in the case of the captured Negroes, who had been set at liberty in the Cape, and were employed in the Government works and dockyard. An Act of Parliament had rescued these poor creatures from slavery, but the boon of freedom had been bestowed in a manner which rendered it a slight, or at least a questionable blessing; and such was the condition in which they were left in the colony, that some doubts might have been felt, whether their happiness would not have been consulted, if the ship which conveyed them from Africa, had been allowed to complete its course, and to discharge its cargo in the West Indies. The men were captured, and were in consequence declared free by law; but they were set free in a country where they were strangers and destitute of all means of subsistence; and where the means of support were not provided for them at first, nor always attainable by any efforts of their own. The consideration of the Colonial Government had gone so far, as to have assigned them employment in the dockyards; but it was not easy to persuade an emancipated Negro, that it was necessary to work; nor was it easier to teach him how to work so as to make him useful. On this account it seemed necessary to treat them like children, to convert their slavery into a servitude, limited in time and measure; and to consider them as apprentices, that some kind of restraint might thus be exercised over those, who were in point of fact made free, but who seemed hardly capable of making a proper use of their freedom. The form of apprenticeship assimilated their condition in the colonial law to that of the Hottentot; but in doing this, it exposed them to all the injuries under which that injured race of men were groaning, through the system which the Dutch laws had established; and which left them too much at the mercy of the Boors to be regarded as independent or secure.

We have seen in an earlier part of the memoir how earnestly Sir Jahleel strove to obtain protection for these people; and we cannot be surprised if his efforts, extended to the Government at home, as well as to that of the colony, should have brought him into connection with that individual, who filled at the moment the glorious, though unsolicited office of being the advocate of the oppressed throughout the world. While resident at the Cape, Sir Jahleel was induced to address himself to Mr. Wilberforce, and not only to call his attention to the stealthy modes in which the trade in slaves was carried on through the channel of Mozambique, and to the danger of the Cape becoming a depÔt for that nefarious traffic; but likewise to the state of the emancipated Negroes, and the native population of the colony. Mr. Wilberforce, whose ear was ever open to the cry of distress, felt at once the value of his new correspondent, and the importance of the appeal. The case of the Cape colony was included in the succeeding measures for the abolition of the slave trade. Public attention was drawn to the existence of the traffic on the eastern coast of Africa, and in the Indian Ocean; and that quarter of the world was protected from the encroachment of the evil, which has blighted the prosperity of the west.

Sir Jahleel Brenton’s zeal in behalf of the emancipated Negroes led him likewise to consider the state of the Hottentot population at the Cape; and here he found Dr. Philip engaged in a long, and almost hopeless contest with the Colonial Government, in behalf of that despised and injured people. The original natives of the country, they had been reduced by the Dutch settlers to a state of servitude, in some degree worse than slavery; as the master felt, that while both slave and servant were equally at his disposal and equally under his control, the slave had been purchased, and had cost him something; and the servant had come under his dominion for nothing. Both therefore were to all intents bondmen; for the servant had no power of changing his master, at least no power which he dared to exercise; and the circumstance of his having been born to nominal freedom, availed nothing, where the law was framed for the sole purpose of securing the master’s rights; and where distance from the seat of Government, and the wild independence of the Boor’s life, made an appeal to justice all but impossible. The character of the Dutch settlers likewise, sordid and covetous on principle, and at that time filled with hatred of the British influence, as being the dominion of a conqueror; and of British intercourse as likely to introduce a rival and encroaching population; placed them in an attitude of suspicion and defiance. Every attempt made by the Government to ameliorate the condition of the Hottentots was viewed with jealousy by the Boors, as an abridgement of their own rights; and every disposition in the Hottentots to complain was crushed by increased severity, as if it were an act of insurrection. The very efforts of the missionaries to convey to that benighted race the knowledge of the gospel, were contemplated with prejudice and ill-will by the colonists. In consequence every obstacle was thrown in their way. The attendance of the servants was forbidden at all occasions of social worship, or religious instruction. The wish for instruction was considered a crime in the Hottentot; and all that the fierce violence of a brutal mind could suggest, was too often done by the farmers, to subdue the rising spirit of religion, whenever it had been excited by the preaching of the missionaries in their neighbourhood. It is a painful and humiliating fact that the local regulations of Protestant colonies have been uniformly less favourable to the spiritual improvement of the natives, than those established in Roman Catholic colonies. Not that Protestantism is less lenient in its character, or less congenial with liberty than Romanism, for it is confessedly more so; but the Protestant colonies having been formed in later times, and at times when the church had lost that influence with the state, which it once possessed; the colonial legislation in all the later European settlements was constructed on purely secular grounds, and religion had no voice, because the church had no power.

The Dutch system of Government at the Cape had in other respects much to recommend it. The established religion of the mother country had been introduced in the colony, and been endowed. The character of the settlers, at least of those in the town, would have borne comparison with that of any colony belonging to other European nations; and the Boors themselves, when political or personal jealousies did not intervene, were found hospitable, kind, and correct in general behaviour. The misfortune of the colony arose from the degree of power which was possessed by individuals, not prepared to exercise it properly, and who were subject to great and obvious temptations to abuse it; and thus it happened that the condition to which the Hottentots were reduced under the Dutch law was such, that it became the imperative duty of the British Government to take some steps towards correcting an evil, which seemed intolerable and disgraceful to a civilized country. These measures were regarded by the Boors, an uneducated, prejudiced, and overbearing race, as a breach of contract between the Government and themselves; and as an illegal encroachment on those rights which were guaranteed to them when the colony became a part of the British Empire. And these feelings, stimulated by designing men on one side, and aggravated by want of consideration and of conciliatory proceedings on the other, finally led to those acts of resistance which have required military interference, and have endangered for a time the peace and prosperity of this valuable colony.

Sir Jahleel witnessed the working of elements of evil, which were to have their fuller development after he had left the colony. He saw the state of the Negro and the Hottentot population, and he did what he could to ameliorate the condition of each. Had his power been greater, or even had his residence at the Cape been longer, he would have done much towards correcting the evil, and improving the general state of the society; for he possessed in no ordinary degree the qualities which fit man for command, or enable him without command to exercise influence on the minds of others. He had clearness of view, correct judgment, decision, and firmness, combined with patience, sweetness of temper, and the most conciliatory manners. Beyond this, he knew more accurately than most men, the nature of that foundation which must be laid as the security for all permanent prosperity. If the efforts which he did make, were not attended with complete success, their failure may be ascribed with more reason to the inveterate character of the evil, and to the strength of the opposition raised against them, than to any mistake on his part; and a dispassionate consideration of Cape politics during the last twenty years will justify the wisdom of his proceedings, and will leave room for nothing but regret, that his views were not adopted by those who had the power and opportunity of carrying them on to perfection.

The British Government it is true has done much towards the protection of the oppressed and ill treated Hottentot. The measures set on foot to check the trade in slaves, and to prevent the introduction of slavery into the colony have been successful; and in these respects, the plans which were commenced during Sir Jahleel’s residence at the Cape may seem to have been brought to the conclusion that he wished. But the efforts made for the amelioration of the state of the Hottentots were not so immediately successful, and the end which he there had in view has not been accomplished in the most satisfactory manner. At the time when the freedom of the Hottentots was secured by law, the Boors were not convinced that their interests were properly considered in the transaction. Means were not taken to explain to them the real nature of the alteration, which the executive Government felt it necessary to introduce; and men, ignorant as they were in general, and from national prejudice disposed to suspect evil in the measures of their new rulers, were easily persuaded to think that the British Government wished to be generous at their expence; and to establish a character for benevolence, by depriving them of what they considered as their rights. A compensation for the Hottentots, whom they regarded as slaves, was awarded; and a compensation, which if it had been paid on the spot, and in the currency with which they were familiar, would have satisfied all their wishes. But from a strange fatality of error, this compensation was paid in bills on London, and not in a currency with which they were familiar. The Boor unused to mercantile transactions, and unable to negociate the payment of such securities in the wilderness where his life was past, was obliged to put the bills into other hands, in order to obtain their liquidation. Dishonest adventurers introduced themselves, who offered to undertake the business; but who fixed their own terms, and made their own bargain; and the unfortunate farmer receiving a mere fraction of that which he considered to be the value of his slave, felt that he had been swindled out of his property, by the form of a legal transaction, and looked on the Government as the cause of the loss he had sustained.

The resentment which this treatment gave rise to, led to that singular movement of which we have been obliged to hear so much; and which is only practicable in pastoral nations; when the Boor population, with all its property of herds and flocks, quitted the territory which it used to occupy, and advanced into the Cafir districts, proclaiming as it went its own independence, and seeking a new settlement in the wilderness, exempt from the vexatious interference of the British Government.

As a secession like this militated against all principles of society, and must have led to an aggression on the property of the Cafir tribes, which would have exposed the colony to acts of retaliation on their part, it was necessary that the movement should be checked, and that the rebellious emigrants should be reduced to submission. This has not however been effected without bloodshed and difficulty; and the state of the colony exhibits a melancholy picture of the danger which results from ill-combined or precipitated measures, even when the object in view is one of unquestionable usefulness. The error in execution however must not be allowed to impugn the wisdom of the original design. Had Sir Jahleel Brenton been able to carry out the whole of his benevolent purpose, the feelings of the Boor masters would have been consulted, as well as the security of the Hottentot servant. Allowance would have been made for the jealousies of a prejudiced and ignorant class of men; and no unnecessary offence would have been given. All inevitable suspicion would have been provided for and removed, and the success of the scheme might have been secured by the patience and discretion with which it was advanced to its completion.

It has seemed but just to anticipate events, and to name what is now a matter of colonial history, in order to guard the subject of this memoir from the imputation of having originated, or pressed forward measures, which have led to painful results, and to a temporary disturbance of the peace of the country. There is every reason to hope that the movements which have thus been glanced at, are by this time effectually subdued, and that the pacification of the colony is secured; but it was necessary to shew that the real causes of the Boors’ insurrection were not the restoration of the Hottentots to the rights of human beings, but the working of national prejudices, inseparable from the condition of a conquered settlement; and the resentment cherished by covetous, but ill-informed men, who thought they had been atrociously wronged by a Government, which in their hearts they hated.

The farmers might have been gradually convinced, had proper pains been taken to explain the nature of the change, that it was not right to hold a fellow-creature in the sort of bondage to which the natives were reduced; and had proper measures been adopted in the payment of the compensation money, they might have been made to feel that a fair equivalent was given to them by the Government, which vindicated the slaves from their property, and curtailed the power they had been accustomed to exercise over them.

Sir Jahleel’s intimacy with Dr. Philip continued, though the correspondence seems to have dropped after he left the Cape, in proportion as other means were adopted for the improvement of the colony. But his agency was at a subsequent period most advantageously employed in furtherance of a benevolent plan, which originating with Captain Edward Pelham Brenton, was sanctioned and supported by his brother, for rescuing the juvenile delinquents which haunt the streets of London, from their life of misery and sin. It was found on enquiry, that a large portion of this wretched class, which it was at one time calculated amounted to nearly 15,000 lads and boys, living without a home or shelter, or anything like regular employment; consisted of deserted orphans, or of boys who had escaped from the metropolitan workhouses. These unhappy outcasts of society either earned a precarious living by sweeping the streets, and holding horses at markets, and places of public resort, or else maintained themselves by petty acts of plunder. Their dwelling was found in the uninhabited houses on the outskirts of London, the dry arches of bridges, or some such like receptacle; and here they were congregated together at night, if they failed in finding admission to some of the haunts of infamy and vice. Their habits necessarily exposed them to the suspicion of the police, and their wants soon brought them under its notice. The commission to prison for some petty theft put the stamp of crime on the character, and introduced them to the acquaintance of more advanced and hardened accomplices. The first imprisonment therefore was speedily followed by another. Crime followed crime by a kind of necessary sequence, though crime became more atrocious as it was repeated; and after a succession of imprisonments had been found ineffectual to reclaim an offender, who had no means of living but by the offence, which subjected him to punishment; the unhappy lad received a final sentence of transportation, and was sent to fill up the measure of his sufferings and his guilt in a penal colony.

Captain Brenton conceived that something might be done for these poor creatures, and that if it might be done, it should be done. He had seen the wonderful effect produced on the mind by the discipline of a king’s ship, when that discipline was tempered by discretion and kindness; and he resolved to make an experiment on that class, which the world was disposed to regard as the most lost and the most hopeless, the juvenile delinquents of the metropolis. The enquiries he had made into the cases of individuals had satisfied him, that their misery was often the occasion of their crime; and that they were driven by want of necessaries, which they had not any possible means of obtaining, to the acts of dishonesty which exposed them to punishment. Many of them had assured him, and with appearances of sincerity, which it would have been inhumanity to doubt, that they hated the life that they were leading; and that they should embrace with thankfulness any course of labour, which offered them security and food; and he was willing to make an experiment on a small scale, of what might be done towards recovering these outcasts of the world. Premises were taken in the parish of Hackney, and fitted up for the accommodation of seventy or eighty boys. A man eminently qualified for the situation of the head of such an establishment was found, and found willing to undertake it. An outfit of the simplest and most economical kind was provided, with cots for the boys to sleep in, spades and other tools for working in the garden, and the usual supply of school requisites for their education. In a little volume entitled ‘The Bible and the Spade,’ Captain Brenton explained the plan of his benevolent undertaking; and the place was soon filled with boys swept from the streets of London, and for the first time in their lives brought under the influence of Christian education; and allowed to taste the comforts of a settled home, cleanliness, warmth and a regular supply of food.

The first results were highly satisfactory. The mixture of kindness and vivacity in the master’s manner, seemed to awaken the sluggish energies of the idle, and to attach the affections of boys, who had hardly ever been addressed in such a tone before. Activity prevailed in the school, and in the garden; and what was of still more importance, a sense of self-respect, and a desire of honest independence, began to shew itself in the boys, and to encourage hopes of the commencement of a moral change in the character of the inmates. The effect to be expected from the discipline of the school, would however have been less encouraging, if the boys were to have been returned to the society from which they were rescued, as soon as they were discharged. It could not have been hoped that such a change of habit as this temporary withdrawal from evil produced, should resist the temptations with which they would then be surrounded; and Captain Brenton shewed as much knowledge of human nature as benevolence, when he arranged as a subsidiary, but essential part of his system, the transfer of his pupils to a new and less exposed situation. The friendly services of Dr. Philip were therefore here called in to provide for these reclaimed delinquents, places of employment at the Cape. The services of an English boy, though ill-educated and rude, were of some value to colonists, who were dependent on the half reclaimed savages of the country; and the mere recollection of what these boys had known of the usages of civilized life, enabled them to imitate what their masters had never seen. The demand accordingly increased. The boys who had gone out, and who had found situations as servants, or cattle-keepers, wrote back favourable accounts of their condition; and a resource seemed opened, which might have relieved London of some of its misery, and might have carried some new comforts into the wilderness of the Cape.

It is with regret that the conclusion of the attempt must be reported; but it is well that men should be aware, that he who endeavours to assist the worst of his species, must lay his account to expect from them the worst of treatment in return.

Captain Brenton had been induced at the request of a worthless couple, to admit their son into the refuge, and to send him to the Cape as an apprentice. The parents when they found that the boy was gone, conceived that they had got the means of extorting money from his benefactor. They pretended to be anxious about their child, and to be dissatisfied with the representations made to them of his position. They carried their complaint to the Lord Mayor, and declared that the boy had been kidnapped. The public papers took the cause up with violence, and added publicity to the charge. The boy was sent for from the Cape, but before he could be brought back, a sudden attack of gout, to which Captain Brenton was subject, and which came on, the evening subsequent to a public meeting, carried him off; and left the refuge at Hackney Wick a monument of his benevolence, and of the ingratitude that he met with. It is to be hoped however that the benefit of his example will not be lost. The public seems now to be agreed that steps must be taken to remove the evil of such a population of juvenile delinquents; and will probably feel that as prevention is better than cure, it will be expedient to withdraw those who have once fallen, from the scene of past exposure, and to assist their removal to a country where a new course of life may be commenced under happier circumstances. The advantages of possessing such an agency as that of Dr. Philip, will then at least be appreciated, and the public will endeavour to renew a system, which twenty years ago was denounced.[26]

The time however came, when the more active part of Sir Jahleel’s life was to be closed, and he was to be withdrawn from his sphere of labour at the Cape. The general pacification which ensued after the battle of Waterloo justified the reduction of all our colonial establishments; and in the year 1821, Sir Jahleel received directions to wind up the accounts of the Naval Commissioner at the Cape, and to place the dockyard on a reduced scale. It was not possible that he should leave the Cape without deep feelings of regret, increased by the recollections of what he had lost, and what he had left there; but no regret that he experienced at leaving a place endeared to him by so many associations, could equal that of those who seemed to lose in him, the protector, the patron, and the friend whom they had learnt to value and appreciate. During the years of his residence there, he had been occupied unremittingly in some work of benevolence or kindness. There was hardly a class in society which had not received some benefit through his intervention; and there were many who felt that but for him they should have received none. The society in which he had moved were conscious that the mind that had added charms to their intercourse, and elevation to its tone, was to be withdrawn; while the poor and the oppressed, whether English or Dutch, Hottentot or Negro, felt that the resource to which they should have applied in the first place, and with the greatest hope of relief, was taken from them; and that no door would be found, to which they could turn with equal confidence, when that of the Commissioner’s was closed.

The brief narrative of his voyage home may be given in his own words, and as it is with this that his own memoir of his life concludes, it is well that he should tell the tale of his last experience on an element, where he had done so much and suffered so much.

“When the news of the death of Buonaparte, which took place at St. Helena, on the 5th of May, 1821, reached England, orders were dispatched to the Cape of Good Hope for reducing the establishment of the dockyard at Simon’s Bay, and leaving the stores in the charge of a clerk and a foreman of the shipwrights, to assist in the repair of such ships as might occasionally arrive. On the 6th of November, 1821, I embarked with my family on board the Vigo, bearing the flag of Rear Admiral Lambert. We arrived at St. Helena on the 21st, and after staying there a week, we proceeded on our way to England. Having got to the northward of the Tropic, we experienced very bad weather, a continuance of heavy gales from the Westward. In one of these gales, an event occurred, which should be recorded, as it shews from what very slight causes the most serious accidents may arise. In the evening of the 26th December, the wind having moderated, a reef was let out of the main topsail, and the top gallant mast and yard were got up. It continued however to freshen again in the night, and before morning it was found necessary to close reef the main topsail again, to get down the yard and to shape the top gallant mast. While employed in the latter operation, the ship took a very heavy lurch, (she was then scudding) and the people who had hold of the mast rope were violently thrown to leeward. The force this circumstance gave to the mast rope, lifted the heel of the top gallant mast above the cross trees, and rendered all further efforts to strike the mast unavailing. Before any fresh efforts could be made, the topmast springstay gave way, and the topmast stay soon followed, when the mast went, a few feet above the cap, and falling upon the lee topsail yard-arm, carried that away; and the accumulated wreck coming down upon the main yard, carried away the lee lift, by which the weather quarter of the main yard, coming in contact with the top, gave way, carrying with it the weather side of the top crosstrees; thus rendering the mainmast completely disabled, as far as its sails were concerned. At this moment the ship broached too, against a tremendous sea, but providentially without any serious damage. From this circumstance may be seen the importance of not delaying to get down a top gallant mast in time, when a gale is evidently increasing. We arrived at Spithead on the 1st of January, 1822, and it was a singular coincidence that we had left England precisely on that day seven years before.”

With his return to England the more active part of Sir Jahleel Brenton’s professional life was closed. In one sense it might have been said to have ended, when he fell wounded on the deck of the Spartan; for from that time he was incapable of supporting the fatigues inseparable from active service, and nothing but zeal for his profession, combined with a more than ordinary measure of firmness of mind, could have carried him through the duties of the situations which he subsequently filled. The manner in which the duties of the Commissioner’s office at the Cape, and those of situations still more important which he filled at home were afterwards discharged, may serve to shew that man’s powers of usefulness are not limited by the powers of the body; and the supremacy of mind is exhibited most distinctly, where the corporeal part only hinders the exertions which are required from the man.

His first object in returning to England was to seek for the children committed to his charge the shelter and advantages of home; and the affection which bound all the members of his large family together, soon secured to him and them every human consolation and support.

The length of the war which was at last closed, and the general pacification of the world that followed on the death of Napoleon, precluded all idea of active service; and though the feeling which had animated his professional life still existed, and a hope that he might yet have to hoist his own flag, and be again entrusted with command, never was entirely lost, he prepared himself for pursuits of a different kind, and endeavoured to improve the leisure which he had so gloriously won.

Shortly after his return home he received a gratifying proof of the opinion entertained of the services he had rendered to his country, by his appointment to the temporary command of the Royal Charlotte Yacht, at the request of His Royal Highness the Duke of Clarence, when the yacht was employed to convey the Duke and the Duchess to Antwerp, in the summer of 1822.

Shortly after his return from Antwerp he married Miss Harriet Brenton, his cousin, fourth daughter of the late James Brenton, Esq. one of the Judges of Halifax, in Nova Scotia; and though still incapable of active service, and suffering at intervals extreme pain from his wound, which shewed a continual tendency to inflammation, he was much occupied in attending Committees in London on professional subjects, to which he was called by the Lords of the Admiralty. During the same period he had the happiness of making the personal acquaintance of Mr. Wilberforce, whom he had previously only known by correspondence, or as a public character; and he shared with every one who had the privilege of knowing that excellent man, the feelings of fascination which belonged to the warmth of his heart and the powers of his conversation.

The state of his health at the close of 1823 rendered it desirable that he should remove to Bath, where, in the commencement of the following year, his youngest daughter, Harriet Mary, was born. During this period his correspondence with Mr. Wilberforce, and with his respected friend at the Cape, Dr. Philip, offer many interesting specimens of the zeal with which he laboured, under circumstances that would have chilled the spirit of most men, to promote the welfare both temporal and eternal of all who had ever been placed beneath his care. But it seems unnecessary to extend the Memoir of such a life by extracts that only repeat the exhibition of a character more effectually pourtrayed by actions; and enough has been already said to enable the reader to understand and appreciate the mind by which that character was formed.

In the year 1825 Sir Jahleel received the appointment of Colonel of Marines, and removed to a cottage in Hampshire, where he had opportunity for indulging his taste for country pursuits, which, next to those of his profession, were the objects of his preference and his favourite resource. In this retirement he regained in a considerable degree both health and strength, and with returning powers he felt himself justified in applying for employment on active service. In consequence of his application he was appointed in November, 1829, to the command of H.M.S. Donegal, at that time stationed as the Guard Ship at Sheerness. He retained this command however only till the summer of 1830, when he was promoted to the rank of Rear Admiral of the Blue. This increase of rank was however accompanied by a very serious diminution of income; and on leaving the Donegal he thought it expedient to take a small house at Stoke, near Plymouth, which for the time became his home; and here, though occasionally suffering severely from his wound and from gout, he found in his home circle, and the resources which his pencil and his books supplied, the materials of a very happy existence.

In the following year a situation of a very different kind was proposed to him, in the appointment of Lieut. Governor to Greenwich Hospital; and as the circumstances under which the offer was made, and finally accepted, are honourable to all the parties engaged in the transaction, and serve to reflect light on the character of our subject; the Editor feels that on this occasion he may introduce some portions of a correspondence which in its original form might have been considered private. The proposal was made by Sir James Graham, then First Lord of the Admiralty, in the following letter.

To this letter, kind and flattering as it was, the following answer was returned; and if the reader bears in mind that it was written from a cottage, by a man whose narrow income hardly allowed him to offer to his wife and child anything beyond the comforts of a very quiet home, and to whom the situation at Greenwich must have seemed comparative affluence; he will know how to appreciate the high professional spirit which revolted at the conditions proposed, and refused the offer of the dignified and agreeable position at the hospital, if it was to preclude all the opportunities of active employment in the service.

It might have been apprehended that the correspondence would have been closed by this reply; and that Sir Jahleel Brenton might have been left to experience in retirement and poverty the consequences of his inveterate attachment to the active duties of his service.

It is satisfactory to know that this was not the result; that William IV. then king, remembered the hopes which he had held out as Duke of Clarence, and Lord High Admiral; and that the first Lord had the pleasure of bestowing the situation which he had been so glad to offer. The next post brought the following letter from the Admiralty.

This gratifying communication from the First Lord removed the difficulties which had prevented Sir Jahleel from accepting with thankfulness a situation so comfortable in itself, and so full of interest for one who felt as he did for the welfare of seamen in general. The answer, which was written the next day, announced his acceptance of the appointment, in the following words:—

The appointment having been offered and thus thankfully received, no time was lost in taking possession, and in entering on the duties of the office. Sir Jahleel went up at once to London, and presented himself at the Admiralty; and had there a long and satisfactory conversation with Sir James Graham, who said that he was so much impressed by the sentiments contained in his letter that he had sent it to the King; that His Majesty was also struck with the statement, and had of his own mind suggested the arrangement. Sir James further recommended his waiting on the King, and when Sir Jahleel observed that he had no uniform in town, overruled the objection, and advised him to leave all with Sir Herbert Taylor to settle. In a letter addressed to Lady Brenton on the occasion, he says, “I went to St. James’s, and had a most gracious interview with His Majesty; who made me sit down and have a long conversation with him. He asked how I liked the arrangement, and whether I clearly understood the conditions. I said, I understood them to be, that as soon as it came to my turn to be promoted to a Vice-Admiral, I should have my choice between remaining as Lieutenant Governor, and taking my rank. No, said His Majesty, that is not it. You shall keep the Lieutenant Governorship as Vice-Admiral; but when you are to have a flag at the main, then you shall choose whether you remain or take the promotion; but not before. He then asked after my health, which I told him was quite good with the exception of a little gout. Gout is nothing said he. No, replied I, and I hope yet to have the pleasure of serving your Majesty at sea. To this he said, that was of course out of the question at present. He then talked of the squadron, as to their sailing, &c. He added many very civil things, and then wished me a good morning, saying, this was a busy day with him. So much for the interview.”

Sir Jahleel was happy to find that the situation at Greenwich in point of household accommodation and comforts, exceeded his expectation, and offered all that he could have wished to find. He was equally pleased with the reception he met with from that distinguished officer, Sir R. Keats, the Governor, and the other official neighbours whom he found there; nor was he less delighted by finding among the pensioners who were thenceforth to be under his control, some of those who had shared the perils and the glories of his active service. In a letter to his sister, in describing the Hospital, he writes, “I have found several of my old shipmates there, and amongst others my old steward of the Spartan, John Davis, who is very useful in attending to the needful, and may be more so when the things come. I was not a little amused yesterday at the old carpenter’s mate of the Spartan, who accosted me with congratulations, and said, ‘Here we are sir, laid up together in Greenwich tier;’ thinking, I dare say, what lucky fellows we both were to get into such a snug berth; and there is some truth in it too.”

It was in the month of September, 1831, that Sir Jahleel took possession of his apartments at Greenwich Hospital, with a mind relieved from the dread of having relinquished all hopes of active employment, and with an earnest desire to devote all the energies of his mind and heart to the welfare and improvement of the establishment. With what zeal he entered on the duties of his office, and with what tender concern he watched over the people committed to his charge, the men who were the objects of his care, and those who were the associates of his employment can testify. It was hardly possible to have conceived a man more perfectly fitted for the situation which he had to fill at Greenwich; and the old veterans who had either known or heard of his character as an officer, and were prepared to receive their new Lieutenant Governor with the honour due to his gallantry and achievements, were delighted to find the tenderness of a parent exhibited in his consideration of their wants, and to see the kind cheerfulness of a sailor tempered by all the dignity of a Christian in his manners and conversation.

During the period of his office, that excellent establishment, the Naval School, was re-organized; various improvements were introduced in the internal economy of the Hospital; libraries were formed for the amusement of the inmates in their hours of leisure; and much was done for the amelioration of their general habits. But his usefulness was not limited to the precincts of the Hospital. Placed as he was at an easy distance from the metropolis, he was able to obey many calls of benevolence; and to lend his help to many excellent institutions, whether connected with the navy or not. The Sailors’ Home, an establishment which the country owes to the devoted and disinterested labours of Captain Elliot, and the few who laboured with him; and in which the country has incurred a debt which she never will be able to repay; was from its commencement an object of the deepest interest to Sir Jahleel Brenton; and his advice, his interest, his assistance, as far as his means permitted, were always given, and given without reserve to the promoters of the work. At the same time, the condition of the seamen belonging to the port of London, the snares to which they were exposed, the treatment that they met with from their employers, were the subject of his continued thought and exertions.

It was during this period likewise that he was able to lend some help to his brother, Captain Edward Brenton, in his praiseworthy exertions in behalf of that wretched class, the scandal and the plague of our metropolis,—the juvenile delinquents; exertions, to which reference has already been made, and which the world seems now disposed to estimate more justly than it did at first. He attended the last meeting of that association, though in a state of health which rendered the effort very painful; and both he and his brother were attacked by gout the next day. This attack in Captain Brenton’s case terminated fatally, and in Sir Jahleel’s was accompanied with considerable danger and long confinement.

In the year 1833 Sir Jahleel went over to France, and passed a fortnight of great enjoyment with his sister and brother-in-law at St. Omers. He here had the opportunity of retracing the beautiful scenes with which he had been familiar in his boyish days, and enriched his portfolio with many interesting sketches.

The next year he visited the same beloved relatives at Paris, and on that occasion a little circumstance occurred, which it seems right to mention, both as exhibiting the firmness with which he held his own religious principles, and the respect paid to that firmness by an individual who occupies a very important place in the history of our times. As his stay in Paris lasted some weeks, Sir Jahleel felt it his duty to pay his respects to H. M. Louis Philippe, whom, as Duke of Orleans, he had met in the Mediterranean, and with whose mother, the Duchess of Orleans, he had been intimately acquainted while Commissioner at Port Mahon. It was not the season for public presentations, and he therefore communicated his wish in a private note addressed to one of the officers of state, who had the charge of arranging such interviews; and the reply fixed the following Sunday evening for the time of reception. Sir Jahleel returned an answer expressing his deep regret that he could not obey the summons of His Majesty on that day, as it was one which he regarded as sacred, and which he invariably devoted to other objects.

It is gratifying to be able to add the reply which this answer obtained, and as the document is in existence, it is well to repeat the original of a message, as honourable to him who dictated it, as it was to him who received it.

Palais de Neuilly, le 21 Juillet, 1834.

“Aide de Camp de Service pres du Roi,

“L’aide de Camp de Service a l’honneur d’informer Monsieur le Contre Amiral Brenton, que le motif, qui l’a empÉchÉ de venir hier a Neuilly a ÉtÉ appreciÉ par le Roi; et que Sa MajestÉ l’y recevra demain Mardi 22 Juillet, a 8 heures du Soir.”