Page:Royal Naval Biography Marshall v2p1.djvu/29

  officer was born at Kirby, near Norwich, in 1750, and first embarked in the royal navy as a Midshipman, on board the Raisonable of 64 guns, commanded by Captain Maurice Suckling, the worthy uncle, and first professional patron of our lamented hero, the renowned Nelson, who, with several other Norfolk youths, joined that ship about the same period.

The Raisonable was one of the ships commissioned in 1770, on the apprehension of a rupture with Spain, on account of the very extraordinary conduct of that .power relative to the Falkland Islands. On the termination of the dispute, she was paid off, and Captain Suckling was, in May, 1771 > appointed to the command in the river Medway; but Mr. Cooke not relishing so idle and uninteresting a life as that of a Midshipman in a guard-ship, applied for and obtained permission to join the Crescent frigate, then fitting for the Leeward Islands station. In that ship he served, mostly as Master’s-Mate, until Aug. 1774, when she was put out of commission at Woolwich.

We next find him in the Conquestador, 64, guard-ship, at