MEMOIR OF THE LATE COLONEL WILLIAM DE VIC TUPPER, OF THE CHILIAN SERVICE. My beautiful, my brave! Ah! who can tell how many a soul sublime THE common ancestor of the Tuppers of Guernsey was an English gentleman, who settled in the island about the year 1592, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and his descendants have continued to rank among the first insular families. He had two sons, the elder of whom married the daughter of the Procureur du Roi, or Attorney-General,* and the younger removed to England. During the revolution of 1688, the Channel or Norman Isles were eminently protestant, being among the first in the British dominions to disarm and imprison the troops of James the Second, as well as to declare for the Prince of Orange; and another ancestor of the subject of this memoir gladly conveyed to Admiral Russell, at some expense and * Hillary Gosselin, Esq., grandson of Hillary Gosselin, Esq., Bailiff of Guernsey in four reigns,-Henry VIII. to Elizabeth,—and among whose very few male descendants are the present Vice-Admiral Gosselin, and his brother Lieut.-General Gosselin. at sea. risk of capture, passing either through or in sight of the French fleet, the information that Tourville was For this acceptable service he was presented by his sovereigns, William and Mary, with a massive gold chain and medal, which are now in possession of the family, and which they are permitted to bear as an honorable augmentation to their arms and crest. The name appears to be of Saxon origin, as there are several Tuppers residing in Germany at this day. William De Vic Tupper, whose life we are about to narrate, was born in Guernsey on the 28th April, 1800, and was so named from his paternal uncle, who fell in a duel in Guernsey with an officer in the army. He was the fifth of ten sons, and one of thirteen children. His father was a younger son of a much respected jurat or magistrate of the Royal Court, who died in 1802, leaving five children.* Having received an excellent education in England, partly under a private tutor in Warwickshire, De Vic, the name by which he was always designated, was sent on the restoration of the Bourbons, in 1814, to a college at Paris, in which he continued until the arrival of Napoleon from Elba, being then gratified by a glimpse of that extraordinary man. When he landed in France, although he had barely completed his fourteenth year, his stature was so tall and athletic as to give him the appearance of a young giant; and on being asked his age at the police office, that it might be inserted in his passport, his reply was received with a smile of astonishment and incredulity, which afforded much subsequent amusement to his * Two sons, Daniel married Catherine, daughter of John Tupper, Esq., Jurat; and John married Elizabeth, daughter of John Brock, Esq.,—and three daughters, Emilia, wife of Sir P. De Havilland, Bailiff; Elizabeth, wife of W. Le Marchant, Esq.; and Margaret, wife of I. Carey, Esq. |