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SHIP’S LOG. Captain Charles WHITE (?1761-1810). ‘Remarks on Different Bays, Coasts & Harbours; Taken on board His Majesty’s Frigate Vestal’, autograph manuscript journal of two voyages in the Atlantic and the Indian Ocean, 27 December 1787 – 7 July 1791.
SHIP’S LOG. Captain Charles WHITE (?1761-1810). ‘Remarks on Different Bays, Coasts & Harbours; Taken on board His Majesty’s Frigate Vestal’, autograph manuscript journal of two voyages in the Atlantic and the Indian Ocean, 27 December 1787 – 7 July 1791. Decorative title page featuring the arms of White of Bantry, Co. Cork, c.58 individual watercolour coastal profiles, some of these full-page, four maps drawn by the author and featuring his cartouche on inserted fold-outs. In total 71 pages, 320 x 200mm (some leaves excised, partial excisions to ff.5, 11 & 12). Contemporary vellum. A detailed record of the early voyages of Captain Charles White aboard HMS Vestal , which he would later captain with great success during the French Revolutionary Wars: of particular note are his more lengthy observations on the Andaman Islands. [With:] 10 letters received by Charles White 1787-1789; one page of accounts; a list of debts on his death; and further related material. Provenance : Sotheby’s 20 July 1982, lot 289 The first voyage – 27 December 1787 to 8 October 1788 – sees White, then a lieutenant, sail on the Vestal from Madeira to South Africa, with a detour towards Java, before returning to Plymouth: his neatly rendered watercolours begin with a coastal profile of Porto Santo, near Madeira, and are found for most of the important locations taken in during the two voyages. He sails via Cape Verde before reaching South Africa, where the records – including weather and detailed bearings, ships encountered (the Dutch East India Company appearing on more than one occasion), directions for safely approaching ports, and the buildings, fortifications and provisions to be found there (of Table Bay: ‘Mutton remarkably good & moderately cheap. Beer indifferent.’) – cover the areas around Table Bay, Port Natal (Durban, where ‘on our approach the natives made fires all along the Coast’), the Cape of Good Hope and Simon’s Town in most detail. For the second voyage, of the 29 August 1789 to 7 July 1791, many of the same navigational remarks are included, but White also writes at more length as he travels from England via Madeira and the Cape into new territory (a transition perhaps heralded by the arrival aboard of a flying fish ‘of very curious shape’, with two mouths and a beak): first along the west coast of India, before sailing to the Andaman Islands. After including a charming watercolour view of ‘Anjanga Road’ (Anchuthengu) and further describing the Indian coastline viewed as they sail for Bombay, the Vestal heads for the Andaman Islands (represented by one of White’s attractive maps): the manuscript is most detailed in its description of their navigation and aspects, as well as White’s impressions of the people (‘the savage disposition of the natives makes it dangerous to land without being thoroughly armed’, though they will sometimes accept ‘small Presents of Knives, Nails, Ironwork & Cocoa Nuts’) and a description of a meeting with the inhabitants. The four maps show: Cape Verde, 1788; Anger Bay, 1788; Simmon’s Bay (Simon’s Town), 1788; and the Andaman Islands, 1790.