Kelly was first apprenticed as a seaman in 1804 and sailed in vessels engaged in the sealing and sandalwood trades as well as making a voyage to India.
In December 1815, Kelly left Hobart in command of an expedition to circumnavigate Tasmania using the whaleboat Elizabeth .
[3] In November 1817, commanding Birch's Sophia, Kelly sailed on a sealing venture to New Zealand and entered Otago Harbour.
The harbour chief, Korako, would not ferry across Maori from Whareakeake, two miles north along the coast, where Tucker had established himself, and whose people now wished to receive their returning Pakeha's gifts.
Unknown to him he had walked into a pre-existing feud the precise cause of which only became known to historians with the discovery of a manuscript in 2003 which gave the long missing Maori side of the story.
He was financially ruined by the economic depression of the early 1840s and spent most of the remainder of his life back in the employ of the port authorities.