PIERCY BRETT.

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 46, 24 February 1927, Page 6

PIERCY BRETT.

THE STORY OF TWO COAST

NAMES.

A HERO OF THE 30YAL NAVY. This morning the Royal ship, steaming up to her anchorage in the Bay of Islands, would give her people a close-up view on the port hand of two remarkable coast features curiously linked in nomenclature with the British Navy. Cape Brett, with its lighthouse, and Piercy Island, with its ocean-carved "hole in the wall." familiar sights to many hundreds of Aueklanders these summer cruising days, are perhaps usually thought to have been named after two persons. Sometimes, too, one has heard Piercy Island's name attributed to the peculiarity of its arched configuration. But though the rocky islet's chart-name happens to tit it so literally that it might seem to have been coined for it by Cook, the fact remains that Piercy is simply Brett's "front" name.

The story of the Piercy Brott whose memory is preserved in these coast names of ours is not to be found in Cook's \ oyages, nor is it easy to piece it all together. Captain Cook, the record of his first voyage tells us, gave the Cape and the island their names when he discovered them on November 20, 1700, "in honour of Sir Piercy." The chronicle does not gay who Sir Piercy was, but we know that lie was an admiral and one of the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty at the date. The Maori name of the Cape, ascertained from the Maoris by Cook's Tahitian interpreter, was set down as "Motugogogo," which, though a trifle grotesque to tlie New Zealand eye, was quite a good attempt at Motu-Koka-ko, as we pronounce and write it. The name applied to island and cape both means "Isle (or Tree Grove) of the Blue Crow."

By the way, the admiral's name was spelled "Bret" in the Voyages, but "tt" is corrcct as the records show.

It is in the famous log, "Anson's Voyage Round the World," that one finds the story of some of the most picturesque episodes in Admiral Sir Piercy Brett's fighting career. Lord'Anson's great voyage in the Centurion lasted four years, 1740-44, and Brett became hie most trusted lieutenant in that hazardous and often terrible exploit. The story of the long cruise incidentally introduces us to Brett when he was thirty-one years of age and had been a navy lieutenant for six years. Walter, the writer of the Voyage, mentions that Brett was a skilful artist and made valuable drawings during the voyage. In Anson's raids on Spanish shipping and sea ports on the West Coast of South America, the young officer (then second lieutenant of the Centurion j was the keenest of all in his chase of foe and treasure, and lie figures in the story of the capture of a prize, the Santa Teresa de Jesus, soon after Anson left Juan Fernandez for the Peruvian Coast, in 1741. A little later he commanded the frigate's barge in a boat-chase of a more valuable prize, bound to Callao, and carried the vessel by a dashing feat of boarding. But a greater exploit on the Spanish Main was the capture of the Port of Paita, with its rich treasure. Anson entrusted the command of the landing expedition, of 5S picked men, to Lieutenant Brett, who carried out the daring feat with complete success. The British tars shipped off coin to the value of £30.000, and an immense quantity of other loot—"by much the most important booty we met with upon that coast," wrote Chaplain Walter. In those downright old days the Navy frankly went out after loot and lots of it. When the Centurion reached Portsmouth once more (1744) after her long and almost incredible voyagings around the "lobe, it took 32 wagons to carry to London the accumulated treasure (worth about half a million).

In the year following the return of the Centurion, Brett, now appointed Captain of H.M.e. Lion, fought the greatest battle in his life—the action with the French warship, Elisabeth, off Ushant. which was convoying a small frigate in which Prince Charles Edward Stuart was on his way to Scotland. The Elisabeth had on board treasure and arm# for the Jacobite rising, and Brett's attack changed the course of history. The action was 1 long and severe. Brett had 45 men killed and 107 wounded out of the Lion's crew of 400. The Elisabeth lost even more heavily and squared away for France after four hours of it. She abandoned the expedition to Scotland, and thus the Stuart Prince landed without the money and arms gathered for the campaign, a circumstance that- meant ruin for his cause. Other ships Piercv Brett commanded later, but the Lion was the most famous of them all. He died in 1781, after a life of truly heroic adventure, a knight and an Admiral of the Fleet and sometime one of the rulers of King George's Xavy. We may well imagine the admiration which Captain Cook felt for his great senior, as a navigator and seaman and a fearless, lighting commander, and his predecessor in the traverse of the mysterious and romantic Pacific Ocean.