Towards the close of the seventeenth century, one William Brock, of St. Peter's Port, had three sons and one daughter. The eldest son, William, married Judith de Beauvoir, also of an ancient Guernsey family. The third son, Henry, married {6} Susan Saumarez, the sister of that valiant sailor, afterwards the celebrated Admiral Lord de Saumarez. The second son, John, born on January 24th, 1729, married in 1758 Elizabeth de Lisle,[2] daughter of the bailiff of the island, whose ancestor, Sir John de Lisle, had been governor of Guernsey in the reign of Henry IV. By her he had fourteen children, of whom ten lived to maturity. Isaac was the eighth son, and was born on October 6th, 1769,[3] the year that also saw the birth of Wellington and Napoleon Bonaparte. In 1777 the family was deprived of a father's care, for Mr. John Brock, formerly a midshipman in His Majesty's navy, died at Dinan in that year at the early age of forty-eight. His two eldest sons had already entered the army, John as an ensign in the 8th (King's), Ferdinand in the 60th, that famous regiment once known as the Royal Americans, which was raised in the colonies in the time of the struggle with France, and which afterwards did such good service in the American war. These were strenuous times, and England was fighting in all parts of the world. [Sidenote: The young ensign] In 1779, just two years after his father's death, {7} Ferdinand, a youth of nineteen, was killed at the defence of Bâton Rouge, on the Mississippi. Isaac was then ten years old, a strong and lusty youth. At that age he was sent to school, for a short time to Southampton, and afterwards under the care of a French pastor in Rotterdam. While in Guernsey he attended Queen Elizabeth's school, where the Rev. C. Crispin was headmaster. But school life and academical distinction were not to be his portion. At the early age of fifteen he followed the example of his brothers, and on March 2nd, 1785, he obtained a commission, by purchase, in the 8th Regiment, in which his eldest brother had just purchased a captaincy, after ten years' service in America. Though young in years he even then showed proofs of that indomitable will which so distinguished him in after life. Feeling the defects of his education he determined to devote his leisure to study, and often the young ensign would, in spite of jeers, turn from his gay comrades to pass his time among his books, with his door locked to prevent intrusion. Not that he was by any means a prig, for, trained to athletic sports from his earliest years, Isaac Brock had the reputation of being the best boxer and the boldest swimmer among his competitors at school and on the island.