were devoted to mastering all
the details of his profession. After six years in the Caribbean, he
returned to England in the autumn of 1754. The troubles between France
and Great Britain which issued in the Seven Years War had already begun,
and Jervis, whose merit commanded immediate recognition from those under
whom he served, found family influence to insure his speedy promotion
and employment. Being made lieutenant early in 1755, he was with
Boscawen off the Gulf of St. Lawrence when that admiral, although peace
yet reigned, was ordered to seize the French fleet bearing
reinforcements to Quebec. At the same time, Braddock's unfortunate
expedition was miscarrying in the forests of Pittsburg. A year later, in
1756, Jervis went to the Mediterranean with Admiral Hawke, sent to
relieve Byng after the fiasco at Minorca which brought that unhappy
commander to trial and to death.

Before and during this Mediterranean cruise Jervis had been closely
associated with Sir Charles Saunders, one of the most distinguished
admirals of that generation, upon whom he made so favorable an
impression that he was chosen for first lieutenant of the flag-ship,
when Saunders, in 1758, was named to command the fleet to act against
Quebec. The gallant and romantic General Wolfe, whose death in the hour
of victory saddened the triumph of the conquerors, embarked in the same
ship; and the long passage favored the growth of a close personal
intimacy between the two young men, who had been at school together as
boys, although the soldier was several years older than the sailor. The
relations thus formed and the confidences exchanged are shown by a
touching incident recorded by Jervis's biographer. On the night before
the battle on the Heights of Abraham, Wolfe went on board the
_Porcupine_, a small sloop of war to whose command Jervis had meanwhile
been promoted, and asked to see him in private. He then said that he was
strongly impressed with the feeling that he should fall on the morrow,
and therefore wished to entrust to his friend the miniature of the lady,
Miss Lowther, to whom he was engaged, and to have from him the promise
that, if the foreboding proved true, he would in person deliver to her
both the portrait and Wolfe's own last messages. From the interview the
young general departed to achieve his enterprise, to which daring
action, brilliant success, and heroic death have given a lustre that
time itself has not been able to dim, whose