The Southwell Frigate Tradeing on ye Coast of Africa, date unknown

The Southwell Frigate Tradeing on ye Coast of Africa, attributed to Nicholas Pocock, date unknown, Bristol Museums.

In a rare depiction of the eighteenth century slave trade, the artist has depicted a frigate collecting enslaved people on the coast of Africa. It is possible that the shoreline depicted in Malembo, which the Southwell visited on her second voyage in early 1749.

PortCities Bristol suggests that this may have been sketched around 1760. That would make sense if Pocock is indeed the artist. Pocock was born in 1740, and would have been far too young to depict the Southwell during her two voyages to Africa in the mid to late 1740's.

This does raise the question of why Pocock would choose to portray a vessel and a voyage that was largely unremarkable for the time, especially more than a decade after the event. Pocock's father was a sailor, so perhaps he had served aboard one of these voyages and inspired Pocock's later illustration. This will require more research.

Regardless of when or why the scene was chosen, it gives us a look at the day to day operations of the transatlantic slave trade. The artist chose to show the trading of more than just human beings. In the lower right, he shows the captain being carried by two Africans, and goods being brought to the boats in boxes, casks, and pots. The box being carried on the head of the African armed with a musket is marked "Bristol." According to the catalog entry for this sketch at the Bristol Museums website, "the long crate probably carries muskets."

In the boats, the sailors of the Southwell wear jackets that end about the top of the thigh, cocked hats (at least one of which is worn reversed), and what might be a jockey style barge cap or two.

The bottom left shows a more traditional scene on the African coast of sailors hauling enslaved people to the ship. Bound by the neck, the enslaved Africans are loaded onto a waiting boat under the watchful gaze of the captain. The ship is crowded with enslaved people who are crammed on the main deck.

According to the Slave Voyages Database, the Southwell loaded 779 enslaved people on her first voyage, which must have been dangerously overcrowded.

Standing at the stern of the jolly boat, the coxswain wears a jacket without vents and a pair of trousers. His head is topped with a round hat or cocked hat. His mate wears a cocked hat and jacket, but it is unclear if he wears petticoat trousers, trousers, or breeches.

Anglo-American Maritime Clothing, 1680-1740

Today's guest post is by David Fictum of Colonies, Ships, and Pirates. David is engaging in a new, exciting project exploring common sailor's clothing in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. If you're interested in what the slop clothes of my era of study evolved from, I encourage you to support David Fictum's research.

Frontispiece to England's Safety, 1693.

Maritime clothing in the Age of Sail is a topic that only receives minimal attention in the greater history of the maritime world. For those interested in the attire of mariners during the latter half of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, learning about sailor’s garb in the time preceding that period brings further context and understanding to the latter period. In 2015, I completed and successfully defended my master’s thesis for the Maritime Studies Department at East Carolina University concerning the attire of common sailors and pirates for the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. However, before I take my thesis to a publisher, I need to conduct more research so I can provide my readers the best work possible. To conduct said research, I need to go to the archives in London for a 3-week research trip. I cannot raise the funds to conduct this trip by myself, a problem I had when I originally worked on my thesis. Therefore, I have established a GoFundMe page and am asking for donations to help fund this research trip.

I used a variety of period documents to study the mariners and pirates of this era. My research used publications from the era, newspaper accounts, Admiralty contracts with slop sellers, Navy regulations, and probate inventories. It is this last type of source that I wish to use collect more of for my studies. I managed to obtain over a dozen relevant probates through published accounts and the help of Dr. Ed Fox. All the information I collected allowed me to gain not only a better idea of what they wore, but what said clothing said about the lives and world of the sailor. They allowed me a good qualitative, but not quantitative, perspective on maritime clothing.

Photo by Ed Fox

My visit to London, specifically to the National Archives, would allow be to access and photograph hundreds of probate inventories of sailors that died at sea. These particular probates offer the best chance at seeing specifically what clothing sailors owned while at sea in a quantitative manner. In addition to probates, I will look into other period manuscripts and documents, including many more documents from the Admiralty.

Once I complete my work at the archives, I will use the data to improve my thesis and create a two-volume work. The first volume would be my main text discussing maritime clothing, while the second volume would contain many transcripts of the documents I used in my research, including those I obtained during the research trip. The latter volume will provide broader access to documents previously accessed by a small number of historians. This work overall would help establish a foundation on this subject that others in the future can build on in later years.

For those of you interested in this topic, or in maritime history, or in clothing history, or the history of the greater Age of Sail and Early Modern Era, I encourage you to donate to my GoFundMe page and to pass on links to my page to others who also might be interested.

Buckingham on the stocks at Deptford, 1752

Buckingham on the stocks at Deptford, John Cleveley the Elder, 1752, National Maritime Museum.

Cleveley was a shipwright by trade, and many of his paintings depict ships on the stocks. He also populates his paintings with sailors and people. Unlike many other marine artists of the time, Cleveley never separated the image of the ship from the people who built and sailed them. A tangible reminder of the importance of the sailors and the tradesmen in creating these beautiful machines.

Astern of the landlocked Deptford is a small barge with two bargemen. They lay on their oars, but have built up enough moments for a very slight wake to follow their rudder.

They are clad in shirtsleeves, white stockings, blue breeches, and black jockey style barge caps.

Portrait of Arthur Phillip, 1786

Portrait of Arthur Phillip, Francis Wheatley, 1786, National Portrait Gallery UK.

Special thanks to Matthew Brenckle, former historian for the USS Constitution Museum, for pointing out this piece and connecting the dots to Jacob Nagle for me.

An experienced officer, Arthur Phillip is today remembered as commander of the First Fleet. This portrait was painted the year before his fateful voyage, and depicts him stepping ashore from his personal barge. A very similar scene may have transpired when he arrived on the shores of New South Wales, where he would soon be made governor.

Phillip's flagship was the small ten gun Sirius. Thankfully for historians, one of the common sailors aboard the Sirius was Jacob Nagle, who is one of very few such men to leave us a primary source account of his experiences.

Nagle wrote of a rather unfortunate morning:

In the morning when I awoke, the Governors barges cap that I wore was gone, my hankerchief off my neck, and what money I had about me was gone.  The cap was silver mounted, with a large silver plate in the front with the Portegee coat of arms stamp'd on it, with Portegees letters or charictors on it.

Commodore Phillip had served as a captain in the Portuguese navy in 1774, commanding the Nossa Senhora do Pilar in transporting convict labor. During the voyage, he sailed into a storm and survived only with the assistance of the convicts. It was for this reason that he was selected to command the First Fleet over a decade later.

Apparently, Phillip held the experience close to his heart, as Nagle indicates that he still outfitted his bargemen in the caps of his Portuguese service.

It is possible that one of these two men is Jacob Nagle himself. Certainly this is the uniform he would have worn when working the barge. Like many bargemen, it is remarkably simple: white shirt without waistcoat or jacket, plain trousers, and a black barge cap trimmed in white with a silver seal affixed to its front.

A Representation of Capt. Cheap, 1745

A Representation of Capt Cheap, Commander of the ship Wager, Shooting Mr. Cozens his Midshipman; with the Crew building their Huts after the Ship was Cast away on a desolate island on the coast of Patagonia, artist unknown, published 1745 in A voyage to the South-seas, and to many other parts of the world, from 1740 to 1744, by an officer of the fleet.

This particular print was exceptionally difficult to find. I saw reproductions of the original in Leo Heaps' Log of the Centurion (without attribution) and Rear Adm. C.H. Layman's The Wager Disaster: Mayhem, Mutiny and Murder in the South Seas. Having searched through all of the usual sources, I turned to digital collections with the help of Adam Hodges-LeClaire, who found scans of widely varying quality across the internet.

The Wager was a 6th Rate 24 gun frigate with a company of 243 officers and men. She was assigned to the 1740-1744 Anson expedition to raid Spanish holdings and shipping in the Pacific, but like nearly every vessel in the fleet was doomed. Her fate was to be wrecked on the Patagonian shore. From there, the officers and men splintered under the ineffectual command and short temper of David Cheap.

The harrowing experience of the men, and the eventual death of most of them, was the subject of Patrick O'Brian's early maritime novel The Unknown Shore, a predecessor to his famous Aubrey-Maturin novels.

Midshipman Henry Cozens quarreled with Cheap, the purser, the surgeon, and other officers on occasion, but things came to a head on June 10, 1741. While at the mess tent, Cozens learned that rations had been stopped for one of the men. Confronting the purser, he demanded to know the reason. The purser's reply was to accuse Cozens of mutiny and attempt to shoot him. At the sound of the shot, Captain Cheap dispatched a lieutenant to find the reason, and was informed (incorrectly) that Cozens was a mutineer. In a rage, Cheap unceremoniously shot the midshipman in the head without a word.

The event was a major factor in the eventual collapse of discipline and dissolution of the stranded crew.

In the background, numerous sailors work at setting up camp on the Patagonian shore. They are mosty dressed in round hats with low crowns and floppy brims, plain trousers that end at about the bottom of the calf, single breasted jackets cut to about the top of the thigh, and plain, short neckcloths. Though difficult to tell from the piece, it appears that they wear no waistcoats. A couple of sailors wear caps, and at least one wears a cocked hat reversed.

In the detail depicting Captain Cheap shooting Midshipman Cozens, there is one fellow in the immediate background wearing a bob wig. I am inclined to think he is a warrant officer or commissioned officer, given how the cuffs on his coat contrast with the cuffs on the sailors jackets throughout the image.

Even when stranded thousands of miles from home, sailors still carry their trusty sticks! It is worth noting the open slit cuffs of the sailor in the foreground here.

Portraits Painted from Life, Representing Capt Englefield with Eleven of his Crew, 1784

West Wall, The Great Room, Somerset House, the main space of the summer exhibition of the Royal Academy of Arts, 1784, Edward Francis Burney, 1784, British Museum.

Burney's drawing shows us the centerpiece on the West Wall: James Northcote's 1784 painting Portraits Painted from Life, Representing Capt Englefield with Eleven of his Crew Saving Themselves in the Pinnace, from the Wreck of the Centaur, of 74 Guns, Lost Sept 1782. Northcote was particularly proud of this early work, proclaiming it "the grandest and most original thing I ever did." Unfortunately for us, the original is lost.

First, a bit of background.

The Centaur began her life as a French warship, but was captured by the British in their wildly successful military operations of 1759, forever remembered as an Annus Mirabilis. From there, Centaur proved a thorn in the side of the French fleet.

Centaur chasing the Vaillant and Amethyste, January 1760, artist unknown, eighteenth century, National Maritime Museum.

"Frontispiece to book the second: The second cruize of his Majesties ship Centaur off Cape Francois, in the West Indies," artist unknown, c.1761, National Maritime Museum.

During the American Revolutionary War, Captain Inglefield commanded the Centaur when she served in the van of Admiral Rodney's fleet at the Battle of the Saintes. Here the Royal Navy broke the back of the French fleet in the Caribbean. During that famous battle, the French were humiliated by the capture of their 104 gun flagship Ville de Paris and the surrender of the Comte de Grasse. British satirical and historical artists reveled in this stunning victory.

Shortly after the battle, Inglefield was ordered to sail in convoy with the captured French vessels and other Royal Navy ships across the Atlantic under Admiral Graves. The fleet sailed straight into a massive hurricane. Inglefield himself left us a brief account of his experience in Captain Inglefield's Narrative, Concerning The Loss His Majesty's Ship The Centaur, of Seventy-four Guns. He describes the wind as "exceeding in violence every thing of the kind I had ever seen, or had any conception of."

Distress of the Centaur on the Night of the 16th Septr 1782, engraved by Robert Pollard after Robert Dodd, 1783, National Maritime Museum.

This Representation of the distressful situation of His Majesty's Ship the Centaur on the Night of the 16th Sept 1782, printed by F. Jukes, date unknown, National Maritime Museum.

Views of various situations of the Jamaica Fleet, Robert Dodd, 1783, British Museum.

Caught in the hurricane, Centaur began to founder. Captain Inglefield knew she was destined to go to the bottom. It was at this critical juncture that he was made aware that the ship's pinnace was being "forced" off the ship by a number of sailors. Facing the philosophical quandary of remaining to die with his men in a gesture or taking to the boat to live, "the love of my life prevailed." Panicked men poured from the side of the ship in a vain attempt to board the pinnace, including a young midshipman.

Mr. Baylis, a young gentleman fifteen years of age, leaped from the chains after the boat got off, and was taken in. The boat falling astern, became exposed to the sea, and we endeavoured to pull her bow round to keep her to the break of the sea, and so pass to windward of the ship; but in the attempt she was nearly filled; the sea ran too high, and the only probability of living was keeping before the wind.

Inglefield, Midshipman Robert Baylis (or Bayles), Master Thomas Rainy, and Captain's Coxswain Timothy Sullivan all managed to guide the overloaded pinnace and her distressed sailors sixteen days over open water to the Azores with the loss of only one man.

Preservation of Cpt Inglefield, the Master, and Ten of the Crew of the Centaur in the Pinnace, Robert Pollard, 1784, National Maritime Museum. As featured in this blog post.


Tomorrow my esteem'd brother blogger at Napoleonic Tars: 1790-1820 examines the surviving prints of James Northcote's masterpiece and the clothing of the survivors.

Frigate and Fishing Boats, Date Unknown

Frigate and Fishing Boats, John Cleveley the Elder, date unknown, Wikimedia Commons.

Continuing on my John Cleveley the Elder kick, I dug up this piece from Wikimedia Commons. It is undated, but obviously must have been before Cleveley's death in 1777. The user who submitted this picture claims it is in the collection of the Mariners' Museum and Park, but their online catalog turns up nothing.

The men int he fishing boat wear jackets of varying shades of brown. The Coxswain appears to be wearing red. The resolution is too low to be certain of much else, including their headgear. The only other detail is the fellow at the foremast who wears a pair of light blue or natural colored petticoat trousers.

The men on the twenty four gun frigate are likewise nondescript. Blue and light colored jackets, indiscernible headgear, and too low of a resolution to say anything more.

I hope to find some time to get down to the Mariners' Museum in the future, in part to see if this mysterious piece turns up. If you have any more information on Cleveley's painting, please let us know in the comments below!

The Peregrine in Two Positions, 1766

The Peregrine (later renamed The Royal Caroline) in Two Positions off the Coast, John Cleveley the Elder, 1766, The Berger Collection.

The Peregrine was a doomed ship when Edward Knowles took command. Launched in 1700, the Peregrine was renamed the Caroline when she was converted from a twenty gun sixth rate galley to a royal yacht in 1716. She later became the Royal Caroline before being refitted into a sixth rate once again, and restored to her original name.

In her sixty first year of service, she was placed under the command of the seventeen year old Captain Edward Knowles. A remarkably young lieutenant in the Royal Navy, he could credit his quick rise through the ranks at least in part to his father, Sir Charles Knowles. A distinguished naval officer, Sir Charles has recently been promoted to full Admiral.

Edward was entrusted with carrying vital dispatches for Augustus Keppel at Belle Île and the naval squadron at Lisbon, informing the commanders that war had been declared with the Spanish late in the Seven Years War. It was late in the year, and after arriving at Belle Île Knowles was warned by Keppel not to put to sea with his aged and small vessel and an impending storm. Ignoring the advice, Knowles and the Peregrine were lost at sea with no survivors.

Edward Knowles, Francis Cotes, c.1762, Wikimedia Commons.

Sir Charles felt the loss of his eldest son keenly, and commissioned Francis Cotes to make a posthumous portrait of Edward based on a silhouette in Sir Charles' possession.

Edward Knowles' image was preserved by Cotes, and in 1766, John Celveley the Elder chose to preserve the Peregrine and her crew. In this painting, Cotes portrays the Peregrine in two positions, and in two times. On the left, she flies the colors of a warship, and on the right, the colors of a royal yacht.

Cleveley began his life as a joiner working the dockyards. While a marine artist like many others who focused primarily on the ships he was painting, Cleveley usually populates his scenes with people. Perhaps this was a bottom up view of his time, and a recognition that ships and officers alone do not make the navy. A ship is useless without her men. While Edward was remembered by his wealthy family who could afford a portrait, the legacy of Peregrine's crew were enshrined by Cleveley's depiction of their vessel.

In both views, the crew are largely depicted aboard her in cocked hats with red and blue jackets.

John Bull's House in Flames, 1763

John Bull's House in Flames, Sumpter, 1763, Walpole Library.

What we have here is a poorly crafted knock-off of the previous year's John Bull's House Sett in Flames, also in the collection of the Walpole Library. Both show Britain's metaphorical house engulfed in flame in an allusion to the course of the Seven Years War and impending peace.

Though quite like the original piece, the three tars in this print mostly speak different lines:

"Heave away me mates"

"Do it lustily Tom"

"A fresh wind from aloft Jack encreses"

The sailor in the foreground wears a jacket with a single vent at the back, a jockey style cap, and petticoat trousers. His mates are difficult to make out, but one wears a bob wig and reversed cocked hat.

Captain John Byron and landing party in the Strait of Magellan, 1773

Captain John Byron and landing party in the Strait of Magellan, artist unknown, engraved for An account of the voyages undertaken by the order of His present Majesty for making discoveries in the Southern Hemisphere, and successively performed by Commodore Byron, Captain Wallis, Captain Carteret, and Captain Cook, in the Dolphin, the Swallow, and the Endeavor, 1773, David Rumsey Map Collection.

One of the much vaunted survivors of the Anson Expedition and the Wager Mutiny, John Byron is remembered as a skilled mariner and experienced explorer.

This engraving is drawn from a compendium of contemporary explorers printed in London during the years leading up to the American Revolutionary War. The unknown artist depicts Byron and his men visiting the "gigantic" people of Patagonia. As described in his 1767 memoir of the 1764-1766 Dolphin expedition, Byron's visit to Patagonia was an extraordinary one.

The Dolphin having entered 10 or 12 leagues into the mouth of the streights of Magellan, the men on deck observed thirty or forty people of an extraordinary stature, standing on the beach of the continent, who looking attentively at them, made friendly signs, by which they seemed to invite them to come on shore; white others who stood aloft, discovered with their glasses a much greater number, about a mile further up the country; but ascribed their apparent size to the fogginess of the air. The ship happening at this instant to be becalmed, the honourable Mr. Byron, thinking no time would be lost by going ashore, resolved to land, in order to see the Indians and learn what he could of their manners; he therefore ordered a six-oared boat for himself and his officers; and one of twelve oars to be filled with men and arms, as a security, in case there be any attempt to surprize or injure him, or any of those who went with him; tho' the people on shore did not seem to have anything like an offensive weapon among them. 

They Patagonians were indeed "of an extraordinary stature," and we can see them dwarfing Byron and his lieutenant in the detail above. Byron thought the experience to be notable enough to be featured as the frontispiece to his book A Voyage Around the World.

The sailors bearing muskets and bayonets ashore are wearing cocked hats and round hats with narrow brims. One in particular turns toward the view and gestures to the left of the frame, and he appears to be wearing a barge cap. The men all wear jackets that end at the top of the hip or just below it, save for the oarsman in the foreground whose jacket extends to at least the top of the thigh. They all wear their hair bob style, if not bewigged.

Most of the sailors wear trousers, though one near the front of the line is wearing dark breeches (probably blue) and one sailor near the middle and facing to the right of the frame appears to be wearing petticoat trousers.

The coxswain of the other boat wears a cocked hat with very short brim, what appears to be a bob wig, a jacket, and trousers or petticoat trousers.

Landing at Middleburgh, Friendly Islands, 1774-1777

Landing of Captain Cook at Middleburg, Friendly Islands, William Hodges, between 1774-1777, National Maritime Museum.

William Hodges, the artist of this painting, was a witness to this scene. Hodges sailed aboard the Resolution with Cook on Cook's second voyage, and documented numerous scenes along the way. According to the curators at the British Museum, Hodges' painting documents Cook landing with his sailors at the island of Eau, accompanied by the Tongan chief Tioonee who bears a plantain leaf aloft.

Unlike other paintings of Cook's voyages that I've examined, Hodges' piece gives us a good view of common sailor's clothing. Common sailors are often given little detail in his paintings for a reason: the artist Hodges was trying to document previously unknown people, lands, plants, and animals, not what British subjects were already familiar with.

At the bow of the jolly boat is a sailor laying his oar into the sand to slow the vessel. He wears a short brimmed round hat and a waistcoat that hangs open. His white shirt is rolled up well above his elbows, tucked into his petticoat trousers.

Amidships stands captain Cook leaning on his musket, and between him and Tioonee is a sailor in the water, guiding the boat in by hand. He is bare headed, wearing an open white shirt and an open blue jacket.

Aft of Cook are three oarsmen. In the foreground is a sailor with a red waistcoat. A black round hat and short brim is atop his head, and a checked shirt is rolled up well above his elbows. The mariner appears is also wearing a dotted neckcloth.

Beside him is an oarsmen wearing a round hat and blue waistcoat. Standing in the water and guiding the boat by hand stands a sailor in a blue jacket. At the stern is an oarsman in an open blue jacket and a single breasted waistcoat. This jack wears a pair of trousers and his shirt is notably open, lacking a neck cloth.

A quick note on dates. The National Maritime Museum's catalog entry states a wider range than I give the painting. The event depicted occurred in 1774, and so could not have been earlier than that. However, prints of this painting begin to appear in 1777, and so the painting must have been completed or nearly so by then. Thus, my date range differs from that proposed by the National Maritime Museum.

A Perspective view of the River Thames, 1782

"A Perspective view of the River Thames," artist unknown, 1782, National Maritime Museum.

The curators at the National Maritime Museum did not include the inscription for this print in their catalog entry, but are kind enough to transcribe it for us:

Taken from the Kings Arms at Blackwall; Shooters Hill, Woolwich; The East India Dock Yard. From London Magazine Mar 1782.

To the far left of the gram are a pair of East Indiamen on the stocks under construction. Afloat to the right of the frame is a twenty gun ship that might be either a small Royal Navy sixth rate or an East Indiaman. Her ensign at the stern might suggest a Royal Navy vessel, as it is not the colors of the East India Company, but depictions of East India Company ships in the eighteenth century certainly did fly other colors.

This image is largely unremarkable and much like all other "Perspective Views." There is one detail that sets it apart.

To the stern of our twenty gun ship we can see a malefactor gibbeted for display. Doubtless hanged at Execution Dock, this hapless criminal is displayed as a warning to others.

The sailors in this image seem to take little mind of the rotting corpse.

These two are busy at the shipyard. It is difficult to say much about them, except that the standing sailor (or waterman) wears a round hat turned up front and back, and what appears to be a jacket.

Two oarsmen in shirtsleeves and hatless row a well dressed couple away from the yard. Their coxswain wears an oddly shaped hat that might be a cocked hat reversed. He wears a jacket and single breasted waistcoat.

Straps in Training, Part 3: A Practical Guide

This is part two of a guest post by Buzz Mooney. You can find part one here. Also, visit Napoleonic Tars: 1790-1820 for part two.

There appear to be two variations on the "sailors' fashion" of shoes: one features one strap hanging loosely over the forward edge of the buckle frame. Illustrations seem to indicate that this was the more common style. The second style has the straps crossed and fed under the forward side of the buckle frame, as seen in  "Watson and the Shark."

Here are some images of one of my own shoes, with the straps buckled and trained in various manners:

The buckle attached to the chape strap in the usual fashion:

The shoe buckled in the usual fashion:

The shoe buckled in the usual manner, but with the straps pulled forward:

The buckles installed on the chape strap in the conjectural “quick-release” fashion:

The tongue strap buckled:

The “quick-release” method, with both straps loose:

A possible arrangement of the straps, from the “quick-release”. (Note: this would no longer be a quick release, but may be a way to secure the shoe better, while maintaining the overall style):

“Quick release” with both straps fed under the frame:

After these experiments, I am inclined to think that my conjectural “Quick-release” method may have been used on shipboard, to allow quick removal of the shoes for running up aloft, but it seems impractical for going ashore, because it allows the buckle to release from the chape strap, too easily, and tucking the straps to make it more secure eliminates the quickness.

In all, this fashion seems to have been common from at least the mid-1760's to 1810 or so, and may continue as long as buckle shoes are common. Does it go much earlier than 1768? Further research may reveal the answer, but for now, I think we can safely say that yes, sailors did commonly wear their shoes with trained straps, for at least 50 years.