uty,
which, by bringing him immediately under the eyes of the naval
commander-in-chief, placed him also on the highway to advancement, he
owed to Admiral Keppel, then one of the leading flag officers of the
British navy. His uncle, Philip Saumarez, and Keppel had shared the
perils and sufferings of Anson's well-known expedition to the South Seas
in 1740. Together they had buffeted the wild weather off Cape Horn, with
ships' companies more than decimated by scurvy; together they had spread
terror among the Spanish colonies of the Pacific; together they had
captured the great galleon off Manila; and Keppel still retained an
affectionate interest in the kinsman of his old shipmate, who had long
since fallen gloriously on the deck of his ship, in close action with a
French vessel of far superior force.

The squadron, which was commanded by Commodore Sir Peter Parker,
assembled at Cork, whence it sailed in January, 1776. Embarked on board
the _Bristol_ was Lord Cornwallis, afterwards so closely, and for
himself disastrously, associated with the course of the American
Revolution. Struck by Saumarez's activity and efficiency, he offered him
a commission in his own regiment, with the position of aide-de-camp to
himself. The young seaman, having a naturally strong military bent,
which at that moment seemed more likely to receive satisfaction on shore
than at sea, and swayed doubtless also by the prospect of a powerful
patron, in the days when patronage had so much to do with men's careers,
was on the point of accepting; but his messmates chaffed him so
mercilessly upon adopting a profession which habitually supplied them
with derisive illustrations and comparisons, that he finally declined.
Many years later, when Saumarez was among the senior captains of the
navy, the two gentlemen met as guests at the table of the head of the
Admiralty, who upon hearing the incident from Cornwallis remarked that
he would have deprived the navy of one of its best officers.

Owing partly to delays inseparable from sailing vessels, and partly to
the dilatoriness with which war was most often waged before the days of
the French Revolution, the British expedition did not appear off
Charleston until the beginning of June, 1776. To Americans who know
their own history, the stirring story of Fort Moultrie and its repulse
of the British fleet has been familiar from childhood. Few are the
American boys to whom the names of Jasper, of Marion, and of thei