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'Mr James Cornwallis, Pallas, March 75' [Bray album]

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Date

Mar 1775

Description

No. 43 of 74. Titled as above and signed 'AVprGB' (to the life by Gabriel Bray). James Cornwallis was probably a cousin of 'Pallas's' captain, the Hon. William Cornwallis. He was rated as a master's mate on this voyage on which two other aristocratic Cornwallis connections also served; the Hon. Thomas Pakenham, rated as able seaman, and Lord Charles Fitzgerald, a brother of the Duke of Leinster, who was rated midshipman. James Cornwallis became 'Pallas's' second lieutenant in 1776, a captain in 1781 and died in 1790 but little more is known since he did not live long enough to gain an entry in the standard naval biographical dictionaries. This drawing shows him looking at Bray's sketchbook, specifically at a drawing of a seaman carrrying a hammock which may be PAJ1989 before watercolour was applied.This is one of 73 drawings by Bray (plus one signed 'NF 1782') preserved in a 19th-century album. They have now been separately remounted. Bray (1750-1823), was second lieutenant of the 44-gun ‘Pallas’ under Captain the Hon. William Cornwallis (1744-1819) – later a well-known admiral - on two voyages (1774-77) to report on British interests in West Africa, including the slave trade. The dated drawings refer only to the first of these, from December 1774 to September 1775, though a few may be from the second. Others comprise country views, some of Deal, Kent (where Bray may have come from), and others of social-history interest.

Image Licence

CC BY-NC-ND

Image Credit

Location

Atlantic Ocean

Medium

Watercolour