'[The E]xpedition Brigg as she appeared wreck'd on the W[este]rn Point of the [island] of Sta Cruiz Teneriffe A[dV pr ]GB - Dec 1774' [Bray album]

From an album of drawings by Gabriel Bray. No. 21 of 74. A drawing showing a British brig called 'Expedition' aground, with salvage in progress, on the western point of Santa Cruz de Tenerife. Boats are in attendance and men on deck are apparently recovering cargo from the hold with a tackle rigged to the mainstay. The upper masts and yards have already been removed. It was presumably seen by Bray as his ship ran into the harbour at Santa Cruz. This is one of 73 drawings by him (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.