Whilst serving in the Sparrowhawk, whicK vessel was employed on the Malta station during the plague, this officer met with an accident, which caused him the most excruciating torture, and to be confined to his bed for a considerable length of time, blind of both eyes, and without surgical assistance, his messmate, the doctor, having been accidentally left behind at Minorca. He has been fortunate enough to recover the sight of one; but can scarcely discriminate objects at only a few yards distance with the other.
In 1816, Commander W. G. C. Kent volunteered his services, and urgently requested to be employed in the fleet destined against Algiers; but the expedition being on so small a scale, his application could not be complied with. He married, Dec. 80th, 1830, Susanna Elizabeth, third daughter of the late Mr. John Rankin, a merchant of Greenock, in Scotland, by whom he has issue, one daughter.
THOMAS COLBY, Esq.
[Commander.]
Second son of an eminent surgeon, now deceased, by Mary Copplestone, a descendant of the very ancient Devonshire family of that name.
This officer was born at Torrington, co. Devon, in 1782; and entered the royal navy, in Mar. 1797, as midshipman, on board the Bedford 74, Captain Sir Thomas Byard; under whom he served at the battle of Camperdown, and (in the Foudroyant 80) at the defeat of Mons. Bompard, by Sir John B. Warren, off the N.W. coast of Ireland, Oct. 13th, 1798[1]. We subsequently find him serving under the flag of Sir Charles Cotton, with whom he continued until the peace of Amiens, when he was sent to the East Indies, as an admiralty midshipman, in the St. Fiorenzo frigate. Captain Joseph Bingham. On the 18th Sept. 1804, being then in the Centurion 50, Captain James Lind, he assisted in successfully repelling an attack made upon that ship, by a French squadron, consisting of the Marengo 80, and two heavy frigates, under
- ↑ See Vol. I. Part I. p. 150 et seq., and p. 170 et seq.
