Note 26 — No. 3.

Sir Brook Watson, a merchant of London, and Lord Mayor in 1796, born in Plymouth, England, February 7, 1735, died October 2, 1807. Early in life he entered the sea service, but, while bathing in the harbor of Havana, in 1749, a shark bit off his right leg, below the knee, and he was obliged to abandon his chosen profession. A painting, by Copley, represents this scene. Watson then became a merchant, and was a commissary to the British troops in Canada, in 1755 and in 1758. Visiting the American colonies just before the Revolution, he professed himself a Whig, but intercepted letters showed his true character to be that of a spy. In 1782, he was commissary-general to his friend, Sir Guy Carleton, in America; held the same office with the Duke of York, in 1793-95, and that of Commissary-General of England, in 1798-1806. He was a member of Parliament from London, in 1784-93; sheriff of London and Middlesex in 1785, and was made a baronet December 5, 1803. As a reward for his services in America, Parliament voted his wife an annuity of £500 for life.