Also Hyde (afterwards Viscount) Gardner, the Hon. John Murray, and Theophilus Jones, in the Resolution 74, and Atlas 98, attached to the Channel fleet, until the termination of hostilities in 1801. He then joined the Buffalo store-ship, commanded by his uncle, Captain William Kent, and destined to New South Wales; where, in April 1803, he received an appointment to act as lieutenant, which was confirmed by the Admiralty on the 2d May, 1804.
The Buffalo was principally employed in conveying supplies to our settlements in that distant quarter, and surveying some of the South Sea islands. In June 1805, Mr. H. Kent was appointed first lieutenant of the Investigator sloop, then about to sail for England; and on that ship being paid off, in Jan. 1806, he immediately joined the Thames frigate, Captain Brydges W. Taylor, employed in the blockade of Boulogne.
After an ineffectual attempt to destroy the enemy’s invasion flotilla, by means of rockets, on which occasion Lieutenant Kent commanded a boat, the Thames was sent, with the Phoebe frigate in company, to Iceland, for the protection of the Greenland fishery; but she had not the good fortune to fall in with any of the enemy’s cruisers. On her return home, about Mar. 1807, Lieutenant Kent was appointed first of the Hussar 38, Captain Robert Lloyd, in which ship he was present at the bombardment of Copenhagen, and the consequent surrender of the Danish navy, Aug. and Sept. 1807.
The Hussar was subsequently employed, for eighteen months, in the West Indies and on the Halifax station, where she appears to have captured four letters of marque. On her being ordered home. Lieutenant Kent followed Captain Lloyd into the Guerriere 38, in which frigate he continued, under Captains Samuel John Pechell and James Richard Dacres, until she was captured by the United States’ ship Constitution, after a severe action, Aug. 19th, 1812. On this unfortunate occasion he was wounded by a splinter, but continued to assist his captain until the end of the conflict: his readiness to lead on the boarders, and his gallant
