Last Years
In 1847, Admiral Brown visited his native Foxford accompanied by his daughter.
After the fall of the Rosas regime, many naval officers found themselves discharged, but not the Commander of the Navy. Brown remained honoured for his long and loyal service to the nation. Retiring to his villa, Casa Amarilla at Barracas, Brown was visited by Grenfell, his opponent in the Brazilian war, who remarked how ungrateful the Republic was to its good servants; the old Admiral replied: "Mr Grenfell, it does not burden me to have been useful to the mother country of my children; I consider the honours and the wealth superfluous when six feet of earth are enough to rest so many difficulties and pains."
On 3 March 1857 he died and was buried with full military honours. The Argentine government issued a comuniqué stating that "With a life of permanent service to the national wars that our homeland has fought since its independence, William Brown symbolized the naval glory of the Argentine Republic". During his burial, General Bartolomé Mitre famously said: "Brown in his lifetime, standing on the quarterdeck of his ship, was worth a fleet to us". His grave is currently located in the Recoleta cemetery in Buenos Aires.
Read more about this topic: William Brown (admiral)
Famous quotes containing the word years:
“In time, after a dozen years of centering their lives around the games boys play with one another, the boys’ bodies change and that changes everything else. But the memories are not erased of that safest time in the lives of men, when their prime concern was playing games with guys who just wanted to be their friendly competitors. Life never again gets so simple.”
—Frank Pittman (20th century)
“Poor Poe! At first so forgotten that his grave went without a tomb-stone twenty-six years ... today in danger of becoming the life study of a few professors.”
—W.H. (Wystan Hugh)