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This class is made up of contemporary first-hand narrative accounts, contained in sixteen volumes. Narratives of naval actions include a volume of accounts of the Battle of Beachy Head, 1690, for presentation to the King; and an illustrated pocket-book of Lieutenant Lewis Stephen Davis (fl 1777-1799) containing accounts of various actions including the First of June, 1794, Cape St Vincent, 1797, and the Nile, 1798. There are five volumes relating to wrecks and salvage including an account of the loss of the merchant ship LUXEMBURGH , 1727; of the CENTAUR, 1782, by Captain John Nicholson Inglefield (1748-1828) with the verdict of the court martial, 1783. (A version of this was first published in 1782 in London as Captain Inglefield's narrative concerning the loss of His Majesty's ship the Centaur of seventy-four guns.) There is an account of wrecks and disasters on the north Norfolk Coast, 1880 to 1939, by William John Harman (1854-1944), a local fisherman; and also an account of the wreck of and salvage work carried out on the LUTINE which was sunk in 1799, written in 1898 by the salvage engineer Johan J Fletcher (fl.1893-1900). There are two foreign narratives in this section; one, a French manuscript, is 'Campagne Navale de M de Tourville' (1642-1701), which is an account of the movements of the French fleet in the Mediterranean in 1693, with pen and ink drawings and coloured illustrations of flags, probably written by Captain Longeron of the L'ORGUEILLEUX. There are also four annotated printed works, including the author's copy of the 1790 edition of A History of the late siege of Gibraltar, 1779-1783 by Colonel John Drinkwater (later Bethune, 1762-1844) with annotations and additional illustrations, and the galley sheets of The Submarine Peril, published in 1934 by Earl Jellicoe (1859-1935), with manuscript corrections and additions.

This class contains six bound manuscript copies of ships' newspapers. They are generally of a humerous nature and include short stories, verse, riddles and jokes, and ship's news and gossip; nearly all are illustrated. There are two examples from the Royal Navy; 'The Young Idea', the weekly papers of the CHESAPEAKE, 1857 to 1859; and 'The Rocket', 1868 to 1869, newspaper of the MINOTAUR. The 'Sierra Cordova Magpie' is an example of a ship's paper, with colour illustrations, from the square-rigged sailing ship SIERRA CORDOVA, 1901 to 1902. The remaining three volumes are of papers edited by passengers; 'The Nautical Magazine', the EQUESTRIAN, England to Bombay, 1849; the 'Matilda Athenaeum', paper of the MATILDA WATTENBACH, 1859 to 1860, on a voyage to Calcutta; and the 'Loch Garry Magazine', covering a voyage of the LOCH GARRY from Melbourne to Glasgow, 1877.

Papers relating to seamanship, there are four volumes in this class. The earliest is by Sir Henry Mainwaring (1587-1653), entitled 'An Abstract and Exposition of All Things pertaining to the Practice of Navigation', written in 1623, and consisting of a dictionary of sea terms; it was edited by G E Mainwaring and W G Perrin, The Life and Works of Sir Henry Mainwaring (Navy Records Society, vol.56, 1921). The other volumes contain two drafts of the manuscript of 'The Mariner's Sheet Anchor or Seaman's Practical Expositor' by Darcy Lever, which was published in 1808; and an illustrated dictionary of nautical and seamanship terms, with French, Italian and Spanish translations, c 1870.

This class contains thirty-one volumes, bound collections of documents and scrapbooks relating to specific events or collections of documents of a general nature. Among those relating to specific events the earliest is a volume of 1582 which contains intelligence of Spain and Portugal, arranged in tabular fashion by Wyllyam Lyllestone. There are also a volume of documents relating to the attack on Martinique and the capture of Guadeloupe, 1758 to 1759; drafts of sections of the Narrative of the second voyage, 1772 to 1775, of Captain Cook (1728-1779) in Cook's hand; a volume of documents relating to a case of 1783 in the Court of King's bench involving the ship ZONG in which 132 negro slaves died; a list of English prisoners of war at Longwy in 1812; a volume of press cuttings relating to the loss of the P and O steamer TASMANIA in 1887 and to the ensuing Board of Trade enquiry. Among the volumes of a general nature is one of 172 naval documents, 1583 to 1778, fourteen of which date from the sixteenth century, including a comparison of the expenses of the Navy, 1579 to 1584; papers relating to abuses in the Navy, 1608 to 1618; a survey of the King's ships, 1633; and papers relating to the debts and condition of the Navy, 1660 to 1668. Another, bearing the stamp of John Wilson Croker (1780-1857), contains 107 seventeenth century copies of documents from the reign of Edward III to 1639, the majority being late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. It includes instructions to Martin Frobisher (1535?-1594) for his voyage to the 'North West Parts', 1578; instructions to Sir John Hawkins (1532-1595) for a voyage to the Spanish coast, c 1590; a list of the fleet engaged against the Spanish Armada, 1588; a declaration of abuses committed in the provisions of cordage and masts, 1635; and a table showing arrears of ship money, 1635. A third volume contains one hundred documents from c 1600 to 1715; they are mainly reports dealing with such subjects as victualling, manning, discipline and health and include one concerning the abuses of seamen, c 1602; a discourse on the 'former and present state' of the Navy by Sir Robert Slingsby (1611-1661), Comptroller of the Navy, 1661; a table showing the monthly wages of officers, seamen, and dockyard workers, 1689; an appointment of four Commissioners for the Sick and Wounded, 1689; proposals for more effective treatment of sick and wounded seamen on shore, 1689, by Dr Richard Lower (1631-1691); an essay by Richard Gibson, clerk in the Navy Office (fl 1667-1694) giving reasons for the continuance of victuralling the Navy by commission and not by contractor, 1694; and a summary of the accounts of Greenwich Hospital, 1696 to 1703, by John Evelyn (1620-1706). There is a further volume of copies of treaties and trade agreements, 1640 to 1742, including the marriage treaty of Charles II with Portugal, 1671. There is one volume containing general documents relating to Germany in the Second World War: it includes orders concerning thecapture of enemy vessels and their cargoes, 18 August 1939, signed by Hitler and other German leaders; the log of the submarine U47, September to October 1939 containing a detailed account of the attack on the ROYAL OAK, together with other documents relating to U-boat activity, 1939 to 1942; and instructions for the preparation of the invasion of England, signed by Hitler, 16 July 1940.

The earliest document in this class is a contemporary copy of a song composed by Elizabeth I to celebrate the defeat of the Spanish Armada, 1588; also there are drafts by Charles Dibdin of the words of three of his songs, 'Every Man His Own Pilot' (1801), 'The Standing Toast' (1811), which vary slightly from the versions published in George Hogarth's The Songs of Charles Dibdin (1842 and 1848), and 'The Danes' (1807), which is not included in Hogarth's work. There is also a manuscript copy by Dibdin of the words (first verse only) and music of 'Poor Jack' (1788) and an anecdote in his hand regarding the words of 'Jack and the Windlass' (1791). Among the fourteen printed songs, the majority of which are autographed, are 'The Sailor's Return' (1791), 'Tack and Half Tack' (1795) and 'The Watery Grave' (1790) by Charles Dibdin; and 'The Heart of a Sailor' (1802), 'Love and Glory', and 'All's Well' (1805) by John Braham ([1774]-1856) with words by Thomas Dibdin. Finally there is a programme of a musical performance in commemoration of Charles Dibdin at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden, in 1829.

This class consists of single copies of newspapers and newssheets, including a copy of the 'Challenger Gazette', 1828; two issues of 'The Great Eastern Telegraph', 1866, when the GREAT EASTERN was engaged on laying the Atlantic cable; and a copy of the 'Wei-Hai-Wei Gazette', 1902. It also contains playbills, including one advertising a performance on board the prison ship CROWN in 1807 of a play by a French prisoner of war and another announcing the performance of a comedy, Speed the Plough on the MINDEN, 1817.

This class consists of sixteen documents relating to shipbuilding, eighteenth to the twentieth centuries. They include a description of the machine which steered the IPSWICH across the Atlantic after the rudder had been carried away, 1746; the agreement for the building of an East India Company ship, the PRESTON, 1798; a patent for improvement in side propellors for ocean and river vessels, 1865; and papers relating to Admiral Sir Percy Scott's (1853-1924) proposed battleship design, 1911.

The earliest of the twenty-two volumes relating to gunnery is a small volume of c 1705 titled 'A proportion of gunns and gunners stores for a ship of each rate in Her Majesty's naval royal', which shows in a detailed tabulated form the guns and gunners' stores required for ships of twelve different sizes. Other eighteenth-century volumes include 'Artillery Memorandums Relative to the Royal Navy' by Captain Robert Lawson (d 1816), of the Royal Regiment of Artillery, 1782, covering aspects of gunnery including experiments on naval ordnance; and a 'Course of Artillery at the Royal Military Academy', 1791, by Edward Hope, a folio volume with many large watercolour illustrations. Another illustrated volume is a Danish gunnery notebook, 1809 to 1811, kept by J F Lykke. There is a volume containing copies of seven reports of the Committee on Gunnery set up by the Duke of Clarence (1765-1837) while Lord High Admiral in 1828, together with an explanatory letter from Admiral Sir Thomas Masterman Hardy (1769-1839) to John Wilson Croker (1780-1857). The majority of the nineteenth-century volumes are gunnery notebooks kept in the gunnery ships EXCELLENT and CAMBRIDGE by officers and ratings under instruction; there are ten of these, written between 1834 and 1866. They are all illustrated and cover all aspects of naval gunnery.