wounded out of a complement of 400; and the Elisabeth, taking advantage of her enemy's condition, drew off, too much injured to pursue the voyage. The drawn battle was thus as fatal to the Stuart cause as the capture of the Elisabeth would have been; for all the stores, arms, and money for the intended campaign were on board her, and the young prince landed in Scotland a needy and impoverished adventurer.
Early in 1747 Brett was appointed to the Yarmouth, 64 guns, which he commanded in the action off Cape Finisterre on 3 May; he was shortly afterwards temporarily superseded by Captain Saunders, but was reappointed in the autumn, and continued in the same ship till the end of 1750, during the latter part of which time she was guardship at Chatham. In 1752 Brett was appointed to the Royal Caroline yacht, and in the following January, having taken the king over to Germany, received the honour of knighthood. In February 1754 he was one of a commission appointed to examine into the condition of the port of Harwich, which was found to be silting up by the waste of the cliff. He continued in command of the yacht till the end of 1757, and in January 1758 was appointed to the Norfolk as commodore in the Downs. During Anson's cruise off Brest in the summer of 1758 he acted as first captain of the Royal George, in the capacity now known as captain of the fleet. He afterwards returned to the Norfolk and the Downs, and held that command till December 1761, during which period, in the summer of 1759, he was employed on a commission for examining the coasts of Essex, Kent, and Sussex, with a view to their defence against any possible landing of the enemy. His report (15 June 1759) is curious and interesting as showing the extraordinary ignorance of the government as to the nature of the country within a hundred miles of London. Early in 1762 he was sent out to the Mediterranean as second in command, and was soon after promoted to be rear-admiral. He came home the following year, after the peace, and did not serve again at sea, though from 1766 to 1770 he was one of the lords commissioners of the admiralty under Sir Edward Hawke. He became a vice-admiral on 24 Oct. 1770, admiral on 29 Jan. 1778, and died on 14 Oct. 1781. He was buried at Beckenham in Kent, where there is a tablet to his memory in the church.
He married in 1745 Henrietta, daughter of Mr. Thomas Colby, clerk of the cheque at Chatham, by whom be had two sons, who died in infancy, and a daughter, who married Sir George Bowyer. The Peircy Brett whose name appears in later navy lists as a captain of 1787 was a nephew, the son of William Brett, also a captain in the navy, who died in 1769. Lady Brett survived her husband but a few years; she died in August 1788, in the eighty-first year of her age, and was buried in the same vault in the church at Beckenham.
[Charnock's Biog. Nav. v. 239; Gent. Mag. li. 517. 623; Official Letters, &c. in the Public Record Office.]
BRETT, RICHARD (1560?–1637), a learned divine, was descended from a family which had been settled at Whitestanton, Somersetshire, in the time of Henry I (Collinson, Somersetshire, iii. 127). He was entered a commoner of Hart Hall in Oxford University in 1582, took one degree in arts, and was then elected a fellow of Lincoln College, where he set himself to perfect his acquaintance with the classical and eastern languages. According to Wood, 'he was a person famous in his time for learning as well as piety, skill'd and versed to a criticism in the Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Chaldaic, Arabic, and Ethiopic tongues.' In 1597 he was admitted bachelor of divinity, and he proceeded in divinity in 1605. In February 1595 he was presented to the rectory of Quainton, near Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire. On account of his special knowledge of the biblical languages he was appointed by James I one of the translators of the Bible into English. He published two translations from Greek into Latin: 'Vitæ sanctorum Evangelistarum Johannis et Lucæ à Simeone Metaphraste concinnatæ,' Oxford, 1597, and 'Agatharchidis et Memnonis historicorum quæ supersunt omnia,' Oxford, 1597. He was also the author of 'Iconum sacrarum Decas in quâ è subjectis typis compluscula sanæ doctrinæ capita eruuntur,' 1603. He died on 15 April 1637, aged 70, and was buried in the chancel of his church at Quainton. Over his grave a monument with his effigies and a Latin and English epitaph was erected by his widow. By his wife Alice, daughter of Richard Brown, sometime mayor of Oxford, he left four daughters.
[Wood's Athenæ (Bliss), ii. 611–2; Lipscomb's Buckinghamshire, i. 422, 434, 436; Collinson's Somersetshire, iii. 127.]
BRETT, ROBERT (1808–1874), surgeon, was born on 11 Sept. 1808, it is believed at or near Luton, Bedfordshire. As soon as he was old enough, he entered St. George's Hospital, London, as a medical pupil, and passed his examinations, both as M.R.C.S.E. and
