news that De Ruyter had burnt our ships in the Medway, and that the French fleet had entered the Channel. The French, in fact, came no nearer than Brest; but their information was positive, and after a council of war they withdrew the squadron into Catwater. Five days later, when they learned that the French had gone to Brest, they came out again into the Sound, and through July and August, under the command of Kempthorne, but with many councils of war, the ships cruised off the north-west of Ireland, between Blackrock and Rockall. Towards the end of September the squadron returned to Portsmouth, and the next year Kempthorne hoisted his flag in the Warspite, from which he was shortly afterwards moved to the Mary Rose. In December 1669, having taken out the English ambassador for Morocco to Tangier, he was on his way to Sallee when, on the 8th, he retook an English vessel which had been captured by the Algerines, and had on board a prize crew of twenty-two Moors, whom he seems to have sold as slaves; our consul at Cadiz bought two of them (ib. 928, f. 87). At Sallee he was not allowed to land, and on his way back, being driven northwards by a violent gale, he fell in, off Cadiz on 29 Dec., with seven Algiers ships of war. One of these chased a Scotch and a French merchant ship which were in sight, the other six attacked the Mary Rose, and were pressing her hard, when a lucky shot, striking their admiral between wind and water, compelled her to haul off, and the others followed her example. The Mary Rose, with her rigging much cut, eleven men killed and seventeen wounded, got into Cadiz the next day, and in the spring returned to England with the Mediterranean trade. On 30 April he was knighted, in recognition, it was notified, ‘of his very great valour and conduct shewn against the pirates of Algiers.’ In 1671 he had his flag in the Victory, and in 1672 in the St. Andrew, in which he took a prominent part in the battle of Solebay, the rear of the blue squadron being, under the circumstances of the action, the van of the fleet [see Montagu, Edward, first Earl of Sandwich]. He still had his flag in the St. Andrew, as rear-admiral of the blue squadron, in the battle of 11 Aug. 1673, after which he was promoted to be vice-admiral of the blue, and the following year, 31 Oct. 1674, was ordered a pension of 200l. while not employed (Eg. MS. 928, f. 173).
In 1675 he was appointed commissioner of the navy at Portsmouth, and held that office till his death, though hoisting his flag on board the Royal Charles, in the summer of 1678, as second in command of the home fleet under Sir Thomas Allin. He died on 19 Oct. 1679. He left three sons: John, Morgan, and Rupert, all successively captains in the navy. John afterwards took service under the East India Company; Morgan died in command of the Kingfisher in the Mediterranean, in 1681, of wounds received in an action with a fleet of seven Algerine pirates; Rupert, who seems as a lad to have been of an unruly disposition (see a letter of 21 Feb. 1680 from his ‘tender but grosslie abused mother,’ in Eg. MS. 928, f. 268), was appointed commander of the Half-Moon fireship, in October 1690, and died in 1691, ‘killed in a rencounter at a tavern in England.’ Kempthorne also had a daughter; she would seem to have married Sir William Reeves (ib. f. 137), who was killed when in command of the Sovereign in the action of 11 Aug. 1673. The Captain William Kempthorne mentioned by Charnock (Biog. Nav. i. 169) may have been a nephew, but was not a son.
[Campbell's Lives of the Admirals, ii. 261; Charnock's Biog. Nav. i. 111; Lists in the Public Record Office; Egerton MS. 928.]
KEMYS, LAWRENCE (d. 1618), sea-captain, in command of the Gallego followed Sir Walter Ralegh [q. v.] in 1595, joined him at Trinidad, and accompanied him in his further voyage up the Orinoco and in Guiana. The next year, 1596, Ralegh being unable to go himself, sent Kemys in command of the Darling to continue the exploration. Kemys brought back glowing accounts of the wealth of the country he had visited, and urged on Ralegh that it would be greatly to the advantage of the queen to take possession of it (Hakluyt, Principal Navigations, 1600, iii. 666). Ralegh, however, was not in a position to follow the advice, and Kemys seems to have remained in his service on shore. When, in 1603, Ralegh was accused of devising the so-called ‘Main plot,’ Kemys, as his follower and servant, was also implicated, and was imprisoned with him in the Tower, and afterwards in the Fleet, September– December 1603 (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 27 Aug., 2 Sept. 1603; Notes and Queries, 3rd ser. v. 7). He was probably released at the end of the year, and during Ralegh's long imprisonment seems to have acted as his bailiff and agent (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 23 Sept., 23 Dec. 1609). It was no doubt Kemys who instigated Ralegh to demand permission to go on his last voyage to the Orinoco, and when the permission was at last granted, Kemys accompanied him as pilot and captain, claiming to have certain knowledge of a rich gold mine. On reaching the mouth of the
