Page:Royal Naval Biography Marshall sp3.djvu/423

 . His father being a younger son, was brought up to the medical profession, and married a daughter of David Wardrobe, Esq. formerly a surgeon in Edinburgh.

This officer entered the navy, in July 1799, as a midshipman on board the Ajax 80, Captain the Hon. Alexander I. Cochrane, under whom he served until that ship was paid off, on her return from the Mediterranean, in the spring of 1802. He then joined the Diamond frigate. Captain Thomas Elphinstone, who gave him the charge of a detained American, from Bourdeaux, in which vessel he was captured by l’Avanture French privateer, and carried into St. Andero, where he fortunately obtained his release, through the interference of the British consul, thereby escaping a ten years’ sojourn at Verdun. In Dec. 1804, he assisted at the capture of the Spanish corvette Infanta Carlos, with a valuable cargo, and 120,000 dollars in specie, from the Havannah bound to Corunna.

In Oct. 1805, Mr. Kerr removed to the Northumberland 74, bearing the flag of Rear-Admiral Cochrane, by whom he was promoted into the Jason frigate, on the Leeward Islands station, Dec. 31, following.

On the 1st June, 1806, Lieutenant Kerr was sent in the Jason’s barge with two other boats under his command, to destroy a battery, supposed to contain only one gun, near Aguadilla, on the N.W. side of Porto Rico. In attempting to land close to it, the barge grounded on a piece of coral, and the men unexpectedly plunged breast high into a hole between her and the shore, by which their ammunition was rendered totally useless: the Spaniards in the mean time kept up a smart and well-directed fire. In this situation. Lieutenant Kerr, considering that either hesitation or retreat threatened certain destruction to the whole party, instantly determined to storm the fort, and succeeded in carrying it, with the loss of several men killed and wounded. Among the former was the acting master of a schooner then in company with the Jason, who, while speaking to Lieutenant Kerr, received four musket balls at the same moment, and 