zard of his blood, the right of his lord to the sovereignty of the country. For this, the conqueror gave him an honorable addition to his coat of arms, viz. a baton or, on a field azure, an arm and sword as a crest, with the motto, par saxa, per ignes, fortiter et recte.
From this valiant knight are likewise descended the Earls of Minto and St. Germains, Sir William Francis Eliot, Bart., and the family of the celebrated Lord Heathfield.
Captain Henry Algernon Eliot’s more immediate ancestor, however, was Sir John Eliot, Knt. of Port Eliot, co. Cornwall, who, in the third year of Charles I., represented the borough of St. Germains, and rendered himself conspicuous in parliament, as a strenuous opponent of the court, and a zealous assertor of the ancient liberty of the subject. Being an active man of business, and a decided enemy to favorites and their encroachments, this Sir John Eliot was appointed by the House of Commons one of the managers of the impeachment of the Duke of Buckingham; for which, with Sir Dudley Digges, his colleague, he was committed to the Tower, but soon afterwards released. In 1(528, he was again sent thither, with other members of the same house, for refusing to answer before the privy council for parliamentary conduct; and on the 29th of May, in that year, an information was exhibited, in the star chamber, against him and his fellow prisoners, for their undutiful speeches; upon which charge, being afterwards arraigned before the Court of King’s Bench, they were adjudged to be imprisoned during the monarch’s pleasure, and to give security for their good behaviour: in addition to this general sentence, Sir John Eliot was also fined 2000l, These gentlemen were subsequently offered their freedom, upon the terms of making submission; but they rejected the proposition, and Sir John Eliot died in the Tower, Nov. 27th, 1632. His family afterwards received a parliamentary grant of 5000l., in consideration of his loss and sufferings.
The heir of Sir John Eliot died in 1685, leaving an only son, Daniel, whose sole daughter, Catherine, married the learned antiquary Brown Willis, of Whiddon Hall, co. Buckingham. Daniel Eliot, dying without male issue, passed over his two senior uncles, Richard and Edward (from the former of whom Captain Henry Algernon Eliot is lineally descended) and bequeathed a considerable portion of his properly to Edward, grandson of Nicholas, the fourth son of Sir John Eliot. On the death of Edward, without issue, in 1722, the family estate of Port Eliot devolved upon his brother, Richard, from whom it has regularly descended to its present proprietor, the Earl of St. Germains.
Captain Eliot’s great-grand-father was General Roger Eliot, uncle-in-law to Lord Heathfield, the gallant defender of Gibraltar, he having married his lordship’s mother’s sister. This gentleman served under the Prince of Hesse, in the expedition to Spain, temp. Queen Anne, and was present at the capture of the above rock. He shortly afterwards suc-