[FIRST FLEET] Midshipman Newton Fowell, on board HMS Sirius at sea, off Rio de Janeiro, 6 August 1787: autograph letter addressed to his father, John Fowell.

A$150,000 · Offered by Douglas Stewart Fine Books

Entire letter, 1 page, quarto, manuscript in ink on the first side of a bifolium, laid paper watermarked with Britannia and GR surmounted by crown; dated 6 August 1787 and signed N. Fowell , addressed to John Fowell Esq., Black Hall, S. Brent, Devonshire, England , with DOVER/SHIP-LRE hand-stamp on the face and rated in ms. 1/7 (to be paid upon receipt); the flap with circular arrival date stamp NO/20/87 ; complete and well preserved, some very light foxing and minor internal reinforcing at folds; the address and a few internal words slightly re-drawn, small loss at one edge from where a little roughly opened, red wax seal partially remnant. A First Fleet letter, written at sea on the voyage to Botany Bay. The existence of this Newton Fowell letter was not known about at the time of publication of Nance Irvine s otherwise definitive census The Sirius letters : the complete letters of Newton Fowell, midshipman and lieutenant aboard the Sirius, flagship of the First Fleet on its voyage to New South Wales (Sydney, 1988). The letter only came to light in early 1991, when it was discovered in a bundle of maritime mail acquired from the book trade by its previous owner, U.K. postal history collector Malcolm Mynott. It is unclear at what point it had become an estray, separated from the rest of Fowell s correspondence which had been marked for preservation for posterity by his grief-stricken parents upon learning of his death at the end of 1790. The story of its identification, its

• Binding: Hardcover

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