Family and Early Life
Charles Brisbane was born circa 1769, the fourth but eldest surviving son of Admiral John Brisbane. He was entered on board HMS Alcide, commanded by his father, in 1779. He was present at the action of 8 January 1780, and the relief of the Great Siege of Gibraltar in January 1780, and later served in the West Indies. At the end of 1781 he was placed on board HMS Hercules with Captain Henry Savage, and was present at the Battle of the Saintes off Dominica, on 12 April 1782, where he was badly wounded by a splinter.
He continued serving during the peace, and after the Spanish armament in 1790 was promoted to the rank of lieutenant on 22 November. In 1793 he was aboard the frigate HMS Meleager, in which he went out to the Mediterranean, and was employed on shore at Toulon during the occupation of the city, and afterwards in Corsica, both at the siege of Saint-Florent and at the siege of Bastia. Brisbane was under the immediate orders of Captain Horatio Nelson, and like him sustained the loss of an eye from a severe wound in the head inflicted by the small fragments of an iron shot. He then served for a short time in HMS Britannia, bearing the flag of Admiral Lord Hood, by whom he was promoted to the command of the sloop HMS Tarleton on 1 July 1794, and served in her during the remainder of that and the following year in the squadron acting in the Gulf of Genoa, under the immediate orders of Nelson.
Read more about this topic: Charles Brisbane
Famous quotes containing the words early life, family, early and/or life:
“... goodness is of a modest nature, easily discouraged, and when much elbowed in early life by unabashed vices, is apt to retire into extreme privacy, so that it is more easily believed in by those who construct a selfish old gentleman theoretically, than by those who form the narrower judgments based on his personal acquaintance.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)
“You can read the best experts on child care. You can listen to those who have been there. You can take a whole childbirth and child-care course without missing a lesson. But you won’t really know a thing about yourselves and each other as parents, or your baby as a child, until you have her in your arms. That’s the moment when the lifelong process of bringing up a child into the fold of the family begins.”
—Stella Chess (20th century)
“I do not know that I meet, in any of my Walks, Objects which move both my Spleen and Laughter so effectually, as those Young Fellows ... who rise early for no other Purpose but to publish their Laziness.”
—Richard Steele (1672–1729)
“Think of the life of the working woman as the decathlon. If you even finish it’s a miracle.”
—Barbara Dale (b. 1940)