

Sir Samuel Mbttc Xahcr 555 



it was on the sea and not on the land that most of 

 his ancestors sought a vent for their adventurous spirit. 

 Some of them, however, were of more stable temperament, 

 and distinguished themselves by their ability as men of 

 affairs. The Reverend David Lloyd, in his " Statesmen 

 and Favourites of England," published in 1665, says* 

 " There is one of this name remarkable in every King's 

 reign since the Conquest." The most notable of these 

 Bakers was Sir John, sometime Attorney-General and 

 Recorder of London, Chancellor of the Exchequer, and 

 Speaker of the House of Commons in the reigns of 

 Henry VIII., Edward VI., and Mary, all of whom he ably 

 and faithfully served. Sir John's brother James was the 

 lineal ancestor in direct male issue of the great explorer 

 and hunter. 



Sir Samuel's grandfather, Valentine Baker, was a 

 citizen of credit and renown in Bristol, who had proved 

 himself a right valiant sailor. He entered the Royal 

 Navy in his youth, but quitted the service to take 

 independent command of a privateer, fitted out at 

 the expense of himself and his friends. She was an 

 eighteen-gun sloop named the Ccesar. On June 27th, 

 1782, when England was fighting France, Spain, and 

 Holland on the high seas, Valentine Baker fell in with 

 a French frigate carrying thirty-two guns. Despite his 

 great inferiority in armament and men he gave battle, 

 and so splendidly did he fight his ship that the French 

 frigate, riddled and mauled by his fire, struck her flag. 

 The Ccesar, however, with all her boats smashed, crippled 

 in her rigging, and leaking like a sieve, was unable 

 to board her prize, and the Frenchman, perceiving the 



