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Admiral of the White; M.P. for Ilchester; and a Member of the Bath and West of England Society for the encouragement of Agriculture, Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce.

Coffin family has been allied, by intermarriages, with the honorable houses of Chudleigh, Gary, Prideaux, Cockminton, Hathey, Hingeston, &c. So far back as the reign of King Henry II. we find Sir Richard Coffin, of Portledge, in the parish of Alwington, in the northern part of the county of Devon, Knight, which ancient seat and manor had been in the possession of his ancestors from the Norman conquest. The family very early spread itself into several branches, which flourished so well in divers places of Devonshire, that they left their name and adjunct to many of them, as Combe Coffin, now Combe Pyne, in the east part; Coffin’s Will, in the south part; and Coffin’s Ingarly, in the west part thereof; in which latter place the mansion house was near the church, and had attached to it an extensive deer park, now wholly demolished.

The direct ancestor of the subject of this memoir was Tristram Coffin, of Brixton, near Kitley, co. Devon, Esq., who emigrated to North America in 1642, (taking with him the widow of his brother, who had been killed in battle) and settled in the township of Salisbury, near Newbury Port. In 1776, the loyalty by which the Coffins in America distinguished themselves, having rendered them obnoxious to the republicans, they were compelled to return to the mother country.

Our officer is the fourth and youngest son of Nathaniel Coffin, Esq., Cashier of the Customs in the port of Boston, by Elizabeth, daughter of Henry Barnes, Esq. merchant of the same place, and was born May 16, 1759. He entered the naval service hi May 1773, under the auspices of Rear-Admiral John Montagu, who confided him to the care of the late Lieutenant William Hunter, of Greenwich Hospital, at