Beschreibung:

Title: Manuscript Journal kept aboard an American Frigate in 1826-1827 Author: Pratt, Henry C. Place: At Sea Publisher: Date: 1826-1827 Description: 127 pp. + manuscript map, a sketch of the entrance to Rio de Janeiro harbor, & 4 pp. of latitude, longitude & barometric readings. Also, 38-page ms. on smaller paper, describing travels in eastern Pennsylvania in 1825. The main journal is 9½x7¾, quarter leather & boards. Significant and very readable description of a voyage aboard the U.S Navy Frigate Brandywine from New York to Valparaiso, Chile, with a stop at Rio de Janeiro, and the return aboard the Frigate United States. Pratt left New York at the beginning of September, 1826, and returning the end of March, 1827. This was apparently the maiden voyage for Henry Pratt, a surgeon’s mate who was a passenger aboard the Brandywine to connect with his intended ship the United States, at that time in the Pacific Ocean. He also seems to have fancied his literary talents, and his prose is wonderfully descriptive, and quite detailed regarding the conduct of sailing, the sea, the ports visited, his shipmates, and more. He also lists the officers, midshipmen, passengers, and other important personnel on each of the vessels. The map he drew shows the route from New York around Cape Horn and the return. The smaller accompanying manuscript of travels by coach through eastern Pennsylvania is also of note, being a lucid description of the country, towns, and modes of travel in the United States in the first half of the 19th century. Among the passages in the main journal is a description of a burial at sea: “…At the lee gangway the body of the deceased was placed. It was sewed up in his hammock with two round shot accompanying it that it might easily sink. The cords lay on the sloping boards & a horn lantern placed at its head threw a kind of funereal light on the group of the dead man’s messmates who were ranged around. …the board was tilted up, the dark object on it glided swiftly off and a dull heavy splash was heard in the water along-side…” At Rio, he encounters slave dealers, “On our return we passed thru the street where slaves are kept for sale – exposed in large stores like barrels of flour… He offered me a girl of 13 for $200 and handled the unhappy Negroes as tho they had been horses. He turned from me to attend a fat old lady apparently of some rank, who, with a daughter as fat as herself and a couple of female servants was trotting about from store to store, pricing, examining, cheapening the slaves, precisely as buying a shawl…” Additional passages can be sent via email upon request. Lot Amendments Condition: Covers worn, detached, binding coming unsewn with a number of pages and signatures loose; first and lasts leaves of the smaller manuscript soiled; both quite legible, internally very good. Item number: 175537