at length constrained to agree to surrender it at the end of two months,
if not relieved by that time. Sir Robert Knolles, hearing this, also
began to treat with the French; and while at the head of 30,000 men, he
was afterwards defeated by Bertrand du Guesclin. These events occurred
in the reign of Edward the Third, about the middle of the fourteenth
century, when the English were driven out of France; and as Guernsey is
in the direct course between Brittany and England, may not one of Sir
Hugh Brock's family, on his passage across the Channel, have visited the
island and settled there?

The common ancestor of the present Guernsey family of the name of Brock
was William Brock, Esq., a native of the island, who died in the year
1776, and was the grandfather of the subject of this volume. He had
three sons and one daughter, who became connected by marriage with some
of the principal and most ancient families of Guernsey; namely, William,
married to Judith, daughter of James De Beauvoir, Esq.;[4] John, married
to Elizabeth De Lisle, daughter of the then lieutenant-bailiff of the
island; Henry, married to Susan Saumarez, sister of the late Admiral
Lord de Saumarez; and Mary, wife of John Le Marchant, Esq[5]

John Brock, Esq., born January 24, 1729, second son of the above-named
William, had by his wife, Elizabeth De Lisle, a very numerous family of
ten sons and four daughters, of whom eight sons and two daughters
reached maturity. He died in June, 1777, at Dinan, in Brittany, whither
he had gone for the benefit of the waters, at the early age of
forty-eight years.[6] In his youth he was a midshipman in the navy, and
in that capacity had made a voyage to India, which was then considered a
great undertaking. As he was possessed of much activity of mind and
considerable talent, his death was an irreparable loss to his children,
who were of an age to require all the care and counsels of a father; the