Memoir of the Life and Services of Vice-Admiral Sir Jahleel Brenton, Baronet, K.C.B.

Transcriber’s Note: Evident printing errors have been changed in the English. In the passages in French, accents have been added/removed where necessary, but otherwise the spelling, complete with errors, is as printed.
MEMOIR OF THE LIFE AND SERVICES OF VICE-ADMIRAL SIR JAHLEEL BRENTON, BARONET, K. C. B.
EDITED BY THE REV. HENRY RAIKES, CHANCELLOR OF THE DIOCESE OF CHESTER.
LONDON: HATCHARD AND SON, PICCADILLY; SEACOME AND PRICHARD, CHESTER. 1846.

TO LADY BRENTON.
Dear Lady Brenton,
In dedicating to you the Memoir of which I have been permitted to be the Editor, I cannot but feel how inadequate the portrait, which I have been endeavouring to sketch, must appear to you, to whom it now is offered.
I undertook the work indeed, chiefly from a sense of public duty; though without much hope that I should satisfy myself, or those by whom the charge was entrusted to me. It seemed fit and proper, that the world should be made acquainted with a character of such rare and peculiar excellence as that of your husband; and I felt that it was due to the naval service generally, and in particular to the younger members of it, that they should see how qualities of a very different kind might be combined in one man; and might render him, who was the ornament of his profession, a model of what man ought to be in every relation of life. My desire therefore was to do good to others, rather than to do justice to my subject; and instead of dwelling, as to you might seem natural and proper; on those various graces which endeared him to all, and to those most, who knew him best; I have endeavoured to shew what he was, by describing his behaviour under the several trials of his eventful life; and to extend the benefit of his example by making it more generally known.
I dare not suppose, therefore, that the offer of the following Memoir should have any other value in your eyes, than as a token of the affectionate remembrance, with which I dwell upon the character of your much loved husband. In this respect, had I attempted more, I should not have succeeded better; for language never satisfies the requirements of the heart; and you would still have felt, that the half was yet unsaid; after I had written all that I could, in endeavouring to express my admiration and regard.