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Folio logbook (ca. 38x24,5 cm or 15 x 9 ¾ in). [1 ? printed title page], 67, [1 - blank] leaves of watermarked laid paper. A copy of "The Seaman's Journal, Being an Easy and Correct Method of Keeping the Daily Reckoning of a Ship, During the Course of Her Voyage" (New York: Burtus & Crane), with the entries carefully completed in brown ink on recto and verso of the leaves (with a gap of recto of leaf 41, i.e. comprising 133 pp. of text). Title page with a woodcut vignette depicting a sail ship under the American flag, hand coloured and with a period ink title "Bashee Islands, 1809" underneath. Period red ink stamp "C. Teubner" on the title page, watercolour drawing of a maritime signal flag on the front pastedown endpaper. Period brown quarter sheep with marbled papered boards, neatly repaired on hinges and extremities. Paper slightly age-toned, text with occasional stains (leaf 23 and others), but overall a very good logbook, written in a legible hand. Historically significant original, content-rich logbook with a detailed record of the first trade voyage of a New York East Indiaman "America" from New York to Canton (Guangzhou) and back in June 1809 ? June 1810. A namesake of the famous Salem merchant ship and privateer during the War of 1812 (ship "America," built in 1803-1804, made five privateer cruises in 1812-1815, broken up in 1831), this "America" was built on the New York shipyard of Adam and Noah Brown for the noted local merchant company "Minturn & Champlin" and launched in May 1809, shortly before her first voyage (The United States Gazette, May 15, 1809, p. 3). The ship's tonnage was 493 tons (Morrison, J.H. History of New York Ship Yards. N.Y., 1909, p. 47). On June 21, 1809 New York authorities cleared "America" for a voyage to Canton under the command of Captain Mather (Evening Post Marine List// The Evening Post. New York, June 21, 1809, p. 3). The logbook opens with "America's" 158-day outbound voyage, starting on June 24, 1809, when the ship discharged the pilot after the passing of the Sandy Hook spit at the south entrance to New York Bay. She passed the Cape of Good Hope on September 12-13, 1809 (without calling at port) and crossed the Indian Ocean, choosing the route to China via the Alas Strait between Lombok and Sumbawa Islands (Lesser Sunda Islands of Indonesia). On October 21-22, "America" anchored near the "Bally Town" (also marked "Laboagee" on some old maps; it is a settlement south of the modern-day town of Selong on the east coast of Lombok) to get fresh water and trade for fresh supplies. A part of the crew went on shore where they were received by a local "king," who also visited the ship. "America" then crossed the "Java" (Bali) Sea, proceeded north through the Makassar Strait between Borneo and Sulawesi (crossed on October 26 ? November 4) and went across the "Celebean" (Celebes) Sea towards the Pacific Ocean, passing "Sarangaran" (Sarangani) and "Meangis" (Miangas) Islands. On November 11, 1809, while in the "Celebean Sea" east of "Meangis" Island, the compiler saw an island, which "I did not find laid down in any chart, Capt. Mather ["America's" Captain during the voyage] in ship Aeolus from the Cape of Good Hope bound to China first discovered it on Sunday the 30th of November 1806?" The ship then sailed north in the Western Pacific Ocean along the east coast of the Philippines (November 13-24), crossed the South China Sea, passing "Bashee" (Babyan), "Lemma" (Lamma) and "Ladrones" (Wanshan) Islands, arriving to Macao (Macau) on November 29. The goal of the voyage was to trade in Canton and quickly return to New York, but "America" stayed there longer than expected. Captain Mather later reported that "all the English & American ships were embargoed at Canton from Jan. 27 to Feb. 22, in consequence of a new difficuly between the English and Chinese, occasioned by a Chinese having been killed by a British seaman; and the English refused to deliver up any one, unless the criminal could be poi.
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