The Papers of Thomas Bowrey 1669 - 1713 discovered in 1913 by John Humphreys, and now in the possession of Lieut.-Colonel Henry Howard. Part I Diary of a six weeks' tour in 1698 in Holland and Flanders. Part II The Story of the Mary Galley 1704 - 1710.
Author: Thomas Bowrey (1669-1713) edited by Richard Carnac Temple
Year: 1927
Publisher: Hakluyt Society
Place: London
Description:
xxx+398 pages with frontispiece and 8 other plates, 5 maps of which 1 is folding, 8 figures, bibliography and index. Octavo (9" x 6") bound in original publisher's blue cloth with gilt lettering to spine and pictorial representation of the ship Victoria on the cover, decorative blind stamp to covers. Part I: Diary of a six weeks' tour in 1698 in Holland and Flanders, Part II: The story of the Mary Galley, 1704-1710. Works issued by the Hakluyt Society, Second Series, Number 58. First edition.
The Thomas Bowery papers were discover in 1913 in a chest preserved by his widow and contained documents of all sorts and sizes, from books of accounts, records of law cases, shipping papers and correspondence, to mere slips of notes, covering Bowrey's life and the settlement of his own, his wife's and his mother-in-law's estates, together with papers connected with his father-in-law and the Bushell family, the latter carrying on the record long after Bowrey's death. There were hundreds of papers in all stages of legibility, and very many undated and unsigned. The editor eventually split up the documents into nine different sections; of which two are published in this work. The first set contains a characteristically energetic Six Weeks' Tour in Flanders and Holland in 1698, a diary of which is a pocket book with marbled cardboard cover, very closely written. In this were also found notes of sailing directions for the waters around the mouth of the Thames made between 1694 and 1701. The second set of documents contains the story of one of Bowrey's ships, the Mary Galley, from her construction in 1704 to her capture y French privateers in 1707, and the final settlement of her accounts in January 1710. The interest of the story of this vessel is that in it the entire history of a ship in the early eighteenth century, from the contract for building her and the first meeting of her proposed owners, her voyage to Java and India and back, and her final end. even to the settlement of her accounts. Her papers are great importance to historians of ship-building.
Condition:
Light rubbing to extremities, corners bumped, unread with pages needing separation, end pages foxed else very good copy.
