Commencement of his Career.--His Education.--Visit of the Duke of Gloucester to Guernsey.--Saumarez decides for the Navy.--Is put on the Soleby's books.--School at London.--Embarks in the Montreal.--Winchelsea, Pembroke, Levant.--Smyrna.--Returns home.--Passes for Lieutenant.--Embarks in the Bristol.--Proposal to leave the Navy.--Attack on Fort Sullivan.--Gallant Conduct.--Is made Lieutenant.--Bristol, Chatham, Lady Parker.--Commands the Spitfire.--Rhode Island.--Many Engagements.--War with France.--Appearance of the French Fleet under D'Estaing.--Spitfire burnt.--Appearance of Lord Howe. The illustrious admiral, of whose ancestors a biographical sketch has been briefly given in the preceding chapter, and in the Addenda to this work, and whose glorious career is the subject of this record, passed from the first rudiments of learning, under a dame, to the more manly tuition of Elizabeth College, in Guernsey, where his brother, fifteen months his senior, was receiving his education. Although he always said that his brother was a much better scholar in both Latin and Greek than himself, his taste for poetry, and his discrimination in that refined branch of literature, must have appeared at a very early age, as, when he was only seven or eight years old, he surprised his mother by reciting to her several lines from the first pages of Milton's Paradise Lost, which he had learnt of his own accord,--a foretaste of the gratification which he derived through life in reading that noble poem. His mother was so delighted with this unexpected discovery of his taste, that she could not forbear making it known to her friends; especially to a literary gentleman of her acquaintance, who sent young Saumarez a present of the Golden Verses of Pythagoras, which he also committed to memory, and retained throughout his life. But the great sensibility of his heart was most apparent in his attachment to all his relations: their pleasures and their pains were always _his_; and it is therefore not surprising that he was a favourite with them all. In those days, Guernsey was, as it were, a large family; and the society of the upper classes was linked in a small, but a select and happy, circle, interested in each other's welfare. The communication with England not being, as now, kept up by regular packets, the arrival of a stranger was an event of some importance, and mostly occurred through the visits of the king's ships going on foreign stations, which put into Guernsey for wines and other stores: on these occasions the captains and officers were constant guests at the hospitable mansion of our hero's father, and it was usually the province of young Saumarez to look out for and report their appearance.