audacious people. Queen Elizabeth proclaimed the islands a world's
sanctuary, and threw open the ports as free harbours of refuge in time
of war. She authorized protection to "a distance on the ocean as far as
the eye of man could reach." This act of grace was cancelled by George
the Third, who regarded it as a premium on piracy. In Cromwell's time
Admiral Blake had been instructed to raise the siege of Castle Cornet.
He brought its commander to his senses, but only after nine years of
assault, and not before 30,000 cannon-balls had been hurled into the
town.

Late in the fourteenth century, when the English were driven out of
France, not a few of those deported, who had the fighting propensity
well developed, made haste for the Channel Islands, where rare chances
offered to handle an arquebus for the King. Among those who sought
refuge in Guernsey there landed, not far from the Lion's Rock at Cobo,
an English knight, Sir Hugh Brock, lately the keeper of the Castle of
Derval in Brittany, a man "stout of figure and valiant of heart." This
harbour of refuge was St. Peter's Port.

"Within a long recess there lies a bay,
An island shades it from the rolling sea,
And forms a port."

The islet that broke the Atlantic rollers was Castle Cornet. Sir Hugh
Brock, or Badger in the ancient Saxon time--an apt name for a tenacious
fighter--shook hands with fate. He espied the rocky cape of St.
Jerbourg, and ofttimes from its summit he would shape bold plans for the
future, the maturing of which meant much to those of his race destined
to follow.