Memoir of the Life and Services of Vice-Admiral Sir Jahleel Brenton, Baronet, K.C.B‪.‬

It may appear presumptuous in one not connected with the naval service, to attempt the biography of an officer so distinguished as Sir Jahleel Brenton; and it may appear a graver, a less excusable offence, that one belonging to another profession, and that a profession, which requires the devotion of the whole mind to its own peculiar objects, should be undertaking an office so foreign from his usual employment and proper duties. I have, therefore, no hesitation in saying, that if Sir Jahleel Brenton had merely been the man, whom the world knew through the medium of gazettes, and the record of public services, and looked up to as a gallant and distinguished officer; whatever might have been my feelings towards him as a personal friend, whatever my admiration of him as a public character, I never should have undertaken the office, which I am now attempting to discharge. I must also add, that under other circumstances I must have shrunk from the duty, as involving enquiries which I had neither leisure nor means to prosecute; if its labours had not been so far anticipated by documents drawn up by his own hand, and left to his family; that little more seemed left to his biographer, than to arrange that which was already written; and to select out of a memorial designed for the benefit and instruction of his own children, those parts which might be offered to the public, without trespassing on the sacredness of a private, a domestic record.

I must again mention, that I was aware that even this portion of my duty was anticipated, and would be performed in my behalf by one, who, with a single exception, might be regarded as most identified in feelings, views, and mind, with the subject of the memoir.

The delicate and difficult task of selecting from a long and confidential memoir, written with all the fulness of a father’s heart, and intended to be perused as a sort of sacred record by his children; oftentimes too minute or too particular for publication; and still exhibiting in general so much of the character that it was desired to pourtray, that it was difficult to know how to resist insertion; this task was, I say, undertaken by another, who has discharged it with as much fidelity as discretion; and who left nothing to me, but to peruse and confirm that, which had been thus arranged and prepared for the press.

But even these advantages; assisted and increased as they are by the affectionate recollections of the members of his own family; while they promised to render the labour of the undertaking easy, would have been insufficient to determine me to attempt a work for which I was so incompetent, if I had proposed to offer to the public a memoir of the professional life, and of the naval achievements of the man whom it was impossible to know without honouring or loving him. But this seemed unnecessary to be done, and certainly was not to be done by me. His public services, both as a seaman and an officer, have been long known and fully appreciated by the public, and thus have had their appropriate record in the naval histories of the last war. His professional character still lives in the recollection of the service. It therefore is not necessary that naval events should be narrated here, which have been better told in other places; nor that exploits should be dwelt upon, which though they never can be heard without emotion, it may be sufficient for all present purposes to refer to, rather than to repeat.

I would, therefore, beg leave to state at once, that the only aim I venture to propose to myself, is one which differs essentially from that, which has been generally followed by the writers of similar memoirs.

I am not anxious to describe the subject of my narrative, in the form in which he was known and honoured by the world; but in that in which he was known to those who lived with him, and served with him; to his family and his friends; to the men who shared his hardships and dangers, as well as his successes and triumphs. I am not attempting to represent him as the man of courage, enterprise and decision, formed for the hour of peril and contest, fitted to lead and direct the energies of his service, and carrying every heart with him, from the enthusiasm which his example inspired; but I am desirous to shew that those qualities, for which the world would easily give him credit, were united with elements of which the world knew little, and perhaps thought less; but which had their effect in forming the general character of the man, and made him what he was in the different relations of life. I feel it due to him, and still more to those who may be profited by his example, to trace the peculiar qualities of his character to their source, and to shew the principles from which they flowed; so that if there be in his life any thing lovely and of good report; and this there is no one who ever knew him that can doubt; it may be referred to its proper cause, and be ascribed to that, which he himself knew, and felt to be the origin.