Beschreibung:

AMERICAN WAR OF INDEPENDENCE Autograph journal, kept by Giles Welsford of Plymouth, while on board the Sally (Captain Henry Coupar), leaving London on 5 August 1780 and sailing from Gosport to Plymouth, from there in convoy to New York, escorted by the frigate Hyena and 50-Gun Adamant, where they put down anchor on 15 October 1780; giving a full and detailed account of his experiences and all that he witnessed on board the ship ("...All the Beginning of the Evening we were alongside a Transport conveying Hessian Soldiers who were on Deck performing their Evening Service... They appeared very happy & seemed to forget their Condition & the Business they were going on... The Stillness of the Evening – the Melody of their Voices, the striking of the watch Bells & the humming wch was heard throughout the Fleet, tho the ships were at considerable Distances from each other – served to calm my Spirits.../ ...There is a Transport just along side us where they are drumming & playing on the Fife Musick delightful to my Ears. It brings our Campaigns to my Remembrance, at Crediton. I had enough of it in London after the Mob broke out & there saw actual Engagement [i.e. the Gordon Riots]..."); although writing at one point "I do not think I shall ever be induced to go in a Convoy again"; the volume ending, after what seemed a narrow escape from capture, with the convoy's safe arrival at New York ("...The News was that General Arnold was to come over to us & wd have delivered up a Fort with some Thousand Men to Major Andrews who had arrived at the Fort to take Possession of it, but at the very critical Moment the Plot was discovered Major Andrews sized & hung immediately but Arnold with the greatest Difficulty escaped – the Pearl Frigate had taken after 3 Hours & ½ Engagement a French Frigate [L'Espérance] of 32 guns laden with 700 pounds Sugar 300 of Indigo & a Quantity of Cotton besides a Million & ½ of Livres. The prize we saw early this Morning working up to New York under Jury Masts all her own Masts being carried away in the Engagement. We passed her & really she is a beautiful Ship – so stout that they may make a 40 Gun Ship of her with great Pleasure. It is impossible for me to tell you my dearest Friends how beautiful is the Country from Sandy Hook to New York..."); with a continuation sewn in at the end; inscribed on cover in a slightly later hand "Giles Welsford/ Diary Aug: 1780 on board a convoy going to America", c.70 pages, the main volume as supplied by the stationer interleaved throughout with blotting paper, original limp calf wrappers, 4to, between England and New York, August to October 1780 Fußnoten 'WORKING UP TO NEW YORK... ALL HER OWN MASTS BEING CARRIED AWAY IN THE ENGAGEMENT' – an unusually fine, and evocative, account of life on board a convoy sailing to America at the time of the War of Independence. On his return from America, the author was become one of the leading victuallers to the Royal Navy: 'Giles Welsford, the Totnes-based merchant whose son was later to become Mayor of Plymouth, took out a contract at the Victualling Office in Plymouth on 13 April 1793 to deliver five hundred quarts of wheat within six weeks. It was one of several contracts he held to supply wheat to Plymouth and on one occasion Portsmouth between 1792 and 1799' (Roger Knight and Martin Wilcox, Sustaining the Fleet, 1793-185: War, the British Navy and the Contractor State, 2010, p.187). Mary Adams who is mentioned frequently in his diary, and who he misses dreadfully, was to become his wife in 1782.