CHAPTER I

A Somersetshire Lad

EARLY Days Lieutenant of the Centurion-Beginnings of Anson's Voyage-Round the Horn-Juan Fernandez.

THE

HE first difficulty that confronts one in preparing a biography of Charles Saunders is to ascertain approximately the date of his birth and to determine his parentage. He was probably born before or about the year 1713. According to his certificate he was 21 when he passed his examination for the Navy in 1734, but Sir John Laughton1 thinks he would have been three or four years younger. That would make the date of his birth 1716 or 1717 the year 1720, given in the list of flag officers, by Clowes, is obviously wrong. Sir John Laughton says Saunders was probably a near relative (there is no mention of him in George's will which seems to negative the suggestion that he was a son)" of Sir George Saunders, the distinguished Rear-admiral, who died in 1734. The one thing about Saunders' birth which can I think be definitely affirmed is,

1 Dictionary of National Biography.

Clowes, Royal Navy, Vol. iii.

2

that he was not Sir George Saunders' son. The branch of the Saunders family from which Charles sprang was settled in the sixteenth century, if not long before, near Bridgwater in Somersetshire. It is said the family were descended from one of the Counts of Hapsburg, but there is nothing to show how they got the name of Saunders.

Sometime early in the seventeenth century I gather that one George Saunders lived at Huntspill in a house known as Saunders' Court and had five children, the youngest being James, the father of the future Admiral Sir Charles. James Saunders lived near Bridgwater, and of his children the only two who concern us were the subject of this biography, and his sister Ann. Ann Saunders married one Peter Kinsey and is interesting as the mother of Jane, Saunders' niece, who married Richard Huck. At Saunders' death the Hucks took the name of Huck-Saunders, and their children, Anne and Jane, married respectively the second Viscount Melville, and the tenth Earl of Westmoreland.

So far as is known the only association of Saunders' family with the navy came through the Carliels, one of whose earlier sons distinguished himself in some of Drake's expeditions. The Carliels were neighbours of and

A Somersetshire Family

indirectly related related to the Saunderses, but whether there was anything in the association to turn Charles' attention to the sea must be matter for pure conjecture. All we can say is that Saunders was a Somersetshire lad; he may have been educated at Bridgwater or at Bristol, or he may have been sent farther afield. My inclination would be to assume that he went to Bristol and in that port heard stories of the expeditions, from Cabot's time down to his own, which fired his imagination and left him no choice but to become a sailor.

Was he a King's Letter Boy? He probably commanded enough interest to secure the Letter of Service which would assist preferment. Sir John Laughton says he entered the Navy on board the Seahorse towards the end of 1727, under another kinsman," Captain Ambrose Saunders, though what the relationship was he does not indicate and I cannot determine. Ambrose Saunders died in 1731, and the boy was sent to the Hector, commanded by Captain Solgard, with whom he served in the Mediterranean till 1734.1 One would give much to be able to trace his life at this time more closely, if only to know to what extent the boy was father to the man.

In general eighteenth century records we first 1 Dictionary of National Biography.

hear of him as first lieutenant on board the Centurion, in which Commodore Anson embarked in 1740 on his famous voyage round the world— that voyage which, for hardship, cost in human life, dogged endurance, and ultimate success, is one of the most remarkable and fascinating in the history of adventure and exploration. Anson had a knack of finding out the best men to assist him in any important work he might be called on to undertake; all his officers and captains achieved distinction. On board the Centurion as a midshipman was Augustus Keppel, the future Admiral, and Saunders' great friend in the years to come. It is a tribute to the impression Saunders had already made that he should have been among those selected to accompany the great secret expedition which, on the outbreak of war with Spain in 1739, it was decided to send to attack the more or less ill-defended Spanish settlements in South America and the Eastern Seas, and capture heavily-laden treasureships. Anson was at first to go by the Cape of Good Hope, whilst another fleet went by Cape Horn. Plans, however, were changed, and Anson was ordered to the South Seas by way of the Horn. The administration of the navy had been allowed to fall into so hopeless a state that he received, in June, instructions