Manuscript Commonplace Journal

£22,500 · Offered by Shapero Rare Books

The commonplace journal of Sir John Ross which he used and wrote during his second and third commands before he received the fateful summons from the British Admiralty to find the North West Passage. By 1816 Ross had, at the age of 39, achieved all that could have been asked of a Naval Officer. Whilst primarily stationed in the Baltic and the Channel he had been wounded on thirteen separate occasions and his eventual promotion to commander in 1812 had seemed like a long time coming. His command of the Actaeon in 1814 was short lived but he saw action detaining two French vessels bound for Dunkirk, before transferring to the Driver in 1816. There, patrolling the coasts of Scotland whilst planning for a retirement spent with his wife on half-pay and saved prize-money, he wrote this journal whilst longing for hearth and home. Most of the verse is copied, from Byron, Scott, Roscoe, Burns or similar, but others are originals (at least no trace can be found of the pieces elsewhere). A trio of verses is particularly notable: divided into the chase, action, and shipwreck of a ship pursuing an enemy with evocative illustrations for each stage. It is far from unusual for poems to be present onboard a ship, with education not a requirement to have heard and recited certain pieces, and it is just as likely that Ross transcribed these verses from renditions by his fellow shipmates as from reading them in volumes. Much of the verse is dedicated to loss, weather, love, and the English count

• Binding: Hardcover

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