Robert C. Ambrister was born Robert Chrystie Armbrister (1797–1818), a British subject and a native of Nassau in the Bahamas. Armbrister was the youngest son of the South Carolina-born Loyalist, James Armbrister (1757/58-1833) who was then a Lieutenant Colonel in the colonial militia of the Bahamas. Son Robert had served in the British Royal Navy as a volunteer and as a Midshipman between 1809 and 1813, when he returned to the Bahamas. During 1814-1815 he served in the Spanish Floridas as an auxiliary 2nd Lieutenant of the British Corps of Colonial Marines commanded by Brevet Major Edward Nicolls of the Royal Marines. Discharged from the military in Nassau in 1815, the former Marine Lieutenant returned to Spanish Florida in 1817 with his fellow former Marine, Captain George Woodbine, and t