guns. About April, 1796, he was appointed first Lieutenant of the Clyde 46, commanded by the present Commissioner Cunningham, whose high opinion of him was thus publicly expressed in a letter to Lord Keith, reporting the capture of la Vestale French frigate, Aug. 20, 1790:
“The Clyde’s officers and men conducted themselves much to my satisfaction; and I received that support from Lieutenant Kerr which I was prepared to expect by his animated conduct in former critical and more trying situations.”
Mr. James, in his second edition, after giving an account of the Clyde’s action, says, “since the capture of the Reunion by the Crescent, and of the Unité by the Revolutionnaire[1], it had not been customary to knight the Captains of 18-pounder frigates for their success over the 12-pounder frigates of the enemy. Hence Captain Cunningham was not so rewarded; but the Clyde’s first Lieutenant, Alexander Robert Kerr, was made a Commander[2].” Our contemporary “must excuse us” for reminding him that la Vestale was captured on the 20th Aug. 1790, and that Lieutenant Kerr was not promoted until April 20, 1802. The manner in which the Clyde was employed during the six years that Mr. Kerr served under Captain Cunningham, and her well-managed escape from the mutinous fleet at the Nore, have been described in our memoir of the latter officer,Vol. II Part I, p. 77, et seq.
From June, 1802, till February, 1806, Captain Kerr commanded the Diligence and Combatant sloops of war, both employed watching the enemy’s flotilla at Boulogne. In the latter vessel he assisted at the capture of a lugger privateer, near Cape Grisnez. His post commission is dated Jan. 22d, 1806.
We now lose sight of Captain Kerr until Aug. 1808, between which period and the month of June 1809, he was successively appointed, pro temp., to the Tigre, Valiant, and Revenge, third rates, employed off Brest, l’Orient, and Rochefort.
The Revenge was the only two-decker of Lord Gambier’s fleet that sustained any loss in Aix Roads on the memorable
