Canada and the Americas--

with his daily entries on board H.M.S. Devastation from 12 December 1861 to 19 May 1863, giving his “private” account of experiences sailing from Greenhithe to British Columbia, via St Vincent, the Falkland Islands, Valparaiso, and Nanaimo, with a pen-and-ink drawing of  the “State of the Cockpit”, c.125 pages, 8vo (157 x 96mm.), black morocco, fitted box, 1861-1863

The writer makes sometimes detailed observations on day to day events, which include the sudden death of a man at the mess table, shooting birds and attending a Caribbean wedding on shore, seeing a shoal of dolphins and a turtle, catching sharks, having men overboard, riding gales, and an expedition on shore to catch Indian “murderers”, with the flogging of one of them “to make him tell where we can catch the other’s” (“…according to his account he held Marks daughter while the woman (we have got to catch her) stabbed her. He is going to get another dose to morrow if he do’snt tell the rest of it…”).