Captain Bentham’s post commission bears date Sept. 16, 1816. He married, June 7, 1827, Emma Pellew, daughter of the Rev. John Parker, and niece to Admiral Viscount Exmouth.
Agents.– Messrs Maude and Co.
WILLIAM KEMPTHORNE, Esq.
[Post-Captain of 1816.]
This officer’s father and maternal grandfather were both commanders in the Falmouth packet service: the name of the latter was Goodridge.
Mr. W. Kempthorne is a native of Penryn, co. Cornwall. He entered the navy in 1795, and served the whole of his time, as midshipman, under Sir Edward Pellew, now Viscount Exmouth. He was consequently present at the capture and destruction of many French men of war privateers, and merchant vessels. Among the former were l’Unité and la Virginie frigates, and les Droits de l’Homme, a ship of 80 guns[1]. At the age of 16 years, he was taken by the republicans, carried into Rochelle, and there confined in the same prison as the common malefactors. After a captivity of six weeks, however, he had the good fortune to effect his escape, in company with Mr. Henry Gilbert, another Cornish youth; and in the course of a few days more was again safe on board the Indefatigable. His promotion to the rank of lieutenant took place in 1800.
We next find Mr. Kempthorne proceeding with Sir Edward Pellew, in the Culloden 74, to the East Indies, where he was appointed first lieutenant of the Cornwallis frigate, in 1805. He subsequently obtained the command of the Diana brig, mounting 10 twelve-pounder carronades, in which vessel he sailed from Bombay, on his first cruise, victualling only 26 officers and men, in May, 1807. On the 8th Aug. following, while heading his jolly boat’s crew in an attack upon the Topaze, an American piratical schooner, near Macao, he
