(I might find an excuse for being proud, if I were so,not...)
I might find an excuse for being proud, if I were so,not because my ancestors were of exalted rank or title, or celebrated for noble deeds or unbounded wealth, or, indeed, on account of any ordinary reasons,but because I was born in one of the highest cities in the world. I saw the light in Quito, the capital of Ecuador, then forming the northern part of the Spanish province of Peru.
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He was born in London on the 28th of February 1814. He was the son of Lucy Henry Kingston. Much of his youth was spent at Oporto, where his father was a merchant. His father Lucy entered into the wine business in Oporto, and Kingston lived there for many years.
He was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge and afterwards entered his father's wine business, but soon indulged in his natural bent for writing.
He early wrote newspaper articles on Portuguese subjects. These were translated into Portuguese, and the author received a Portuguese order of knighthood and a pension for his services in the conclusion of the commercial treaty of 1842. In 1844 his first book, The Circassian Chief, appeared, and in 1845 The Prime Minister, a Story of the Days of the Great Marquis of Pombal. The Lusitanian Sketches describe Kingston's travels in Portugal. In 1851 Peter the Whaler, his first book for boys, came out.
These books proved so popular that Kingston retired from business, and devoted himself to the production of tales of adventure for boys. Within thirty years he wrote upwards of one hundred and thirty such books. He had a practical knowledge of seamanship, and his stories of the sea, full of thrilling adventures and hairbreadth escapes, exactly hit the taste of his boy readers. Characteristic specimens of his work are The Three Midshipmen; The Three Lieutenants; The Three Commanders; and The Three Admirals.
He also wrote popular accounts of famous travellers by land and sea, and translated some of the stories of Jules Verne. He was editor of the Colonist for a short time in 1844 and of the Colonial Magazine and East Indian Review from 1849 to 1851.
(I might find an excuse for being proud, if I were so,not...)
On 4 August 1853, Kingston married Agnes Kinloch, daughter of Captain Charles Kinloch of the 52nd Light Infantry. She bore her husband eight children but all died early, and this branch of the family is now extinct.
