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Naval manuscripts collected by the Royal United Services Institution. The manuscripts almost all relate to the Royal Navy. There are in addition eight personal collections of naval officers which are described in Volume I: those of Altham (entry no.3), Beaver (14), Broughton (31), Burt (34), Henderson (132), Holburne (136), Oliver (217) and Riou (247).
List of ships and officers: In all there are twenty lists of the ships in the Navy, c 1685 to 1880, some giving dimensions, armament and other details; one of 1780 lists His Majesty's armed vessels on the Canadian lakes and the St Lawrence; another of 1880 includes ships in European navies. The lists of naval officers consist of accounts of Flag Officers, 1660 to c 1755; captains, 1660 to 1715, 1688; and a list of french naval officers, 1792. In addition there is a list of naval chaplains, 1626 to 1903.
Orders and Regulations: The earliest of the orders are General Instructions to be observed by commanders of His Majest's ships, 1683, and three volumes of orders and letters to the joint Admirals commanding the fleet, 1693, one of the volumes containing orders from the Admiralty and another those from the Queen. Related to these are the proceedings of the Councils of War held by the Admirals, 1693. There is also an index to the General Naval Instructions, 1803. relating to the management of the fleet are Vice-Admiral Byron's (1723-1786) sailing and fighting instructions, 1778 to 1782; St Vincent's orders and memoranda, 1800 to 1802; and orders received on board the VALIANT, 1807 to 1808. Regulations for the management of ships include Captain (later Admiral) Thomas Graves' (1747?-1814) standing orders for the MAGICIENNE, 1782, and the orders of Captain (later Admiral) Richard Goodwin Keats for the SUPERB, 1804. Also of note are the Port Orders issued in 1811 by the Commander-in-Chief of ships in the River Thames, Sir Charles Hamilton (1767-1849). Logs and Journals: The logs record the voyages of nineteen ships, 1755 to 1837. The earliest were kept on board the TERRIBLE, 1755 to 1756, and the MARLBOROUGH, 1756 to 1757; the others include the logs of the MELPOMENE, 1803 to 1805; the VALIANT, 1810 to 1814; and VOLAGE, 1833 to 1837. of the journals, the earliest was kept by Thomas Lawrie (fl.1757-1759) on board the AMAZON while in the West Indies, 1757 to 1759. There is a copy of the account of the mutiny on the BOUNTY, 1789, by John Fryer (1752-1817); an account of 'a voyage from Batavia in the island of Java' to England on board the BENGAL MERCHANT, 1815; and another of a voyage from Sydney to Pitcairn and Norfolk islands on the MORAYSHIRE, 1856, by Lieutenant George Gregorie of the Royal Marines. There are two journals by naval chaplains: the earliest was kept by Henry Sainsbury in the DEFENCE mainly in the Mediterranean, 1795 to 1797, and the later one by an unnamed chaplain in a ship on the South American station, 1897. More varied in content are the memoranda books of Lieutenant William Bryan Wake, 1782 to 1799.
Letterbooks and Letters: The collection includes a small number of letters and letterbooks, some personal and some official. There are six letters by Nelson, 1794 to 1805; two by Collingwood, 1805 and 1809; two by St Vincent 1789 and 1810; and some letters and papers relating to Sir Charles Douglas (d.1789), 1776 to 1830. Letterbooks include two kept by Captain (later Rear-Admiral) John Bythesea (fl.1846-1906), despatches and orders received, 1846 to 1862, and letters sent, 1856 to 1868; and one kept by Colonel and Chief Staff Officer of the Portsmouth Dockyard Volunteers, 1848. Naval
Administration and Law: Relating to various aspects of naval administration are a number of warrants.

Papers of Rear-Admiral Edwin John Pollard, including accounts, memoranda and sailing orders for 1858 to 1861, 1863 to 1865 and 1878; a notebook recording the ships in which Pollard served as a junior officer; a watch bill, 1860 to 1861; a book of technical details on the RUPERT and the DEFENCE and newspaper cuttings. 1858 to 1878.

Papers of Sir James Hawkins Whitshed. They include a letterbook of the ROSE, 1784 to 1785; sailing directions and orders of battle, 1800 to 1801, and three letters concerning the possibility of mutiny in the Channel Fleet, 1800.

Sir William Penn's life after 1650 is well covered but for the earlier period there are only a few orders, instructions and isolated documents. The collection includes a log, 1650 to 1651, accounts of battles, 1652 to 1653, a log of the SWIFTSURE and sailing and fighting instructions, both to and from Penn, for the expedition to the West Indies. The 1665 campaign is covered by an incomplete log of the ROYAL CHARLES, a description of the battle of Lowestoft, several sailing and fighting instructions and orders of battle. There are also administrative papers and personal letters covering Penn's tenure of office at the Navy Board. The Pole papers consist of eight volumes of private letters from a wide variety of correspondents, 1769 to 1822. Two particularly large series are those from Admiral Sir William Young (1751-1821) and Pole's brother, Reginald Pole Carew, while Prince William Henry also wrote a considerable number of letters to Pole. The loose papers are mainly administrative and include accounts, prize papers, orders and memoranda. They also contain papers concerning Pole's representation of Plymouth from 1806 to 1818; printed papers and general letters on naval mutiny, 1795 to 1797, with particular reference to the mutinies of 1797; reports and surveys on the Sea Fencibles, 1804 to 1806, and other general reports on such matters as medical experiments, 1791, and experiments with gunpowder, 1796.

Papers of Archibald Cochrane consisting of two midshipman's logs, 1890 to 1894.

Papers of Sir Edward William Campbell Rich Owen. They consist of an account, drawn up in 1825, of the mutiny at Spithead in 1797 and of documents and narrative towards a history of the Walcheren expedition of 1809. There is also a letter of Privy Seal appointing Owen Clerk of the Ordnance, 1834.

Papers of William Fitzwilliam Owen. They include a narrative of Owen's naval service, an account of the proceedings in the Cornelia and papers relating to the Africa survey and his work at Fernando Po. There are also papers concerning the settlement founded by Commander Owen, Admiral Owen's father, in Nova Scotia.

Papers of Arthur Mellersh, containing papers concerning the Chinese pirates, some from Chinese officials and letters and printed material relating to the dismissal of Rear-Admiral Sir Fleetwood Pellew (1789-1861) from the East Indies and China Station in 1853. There are also official service documents.

Papers of Adml William Henry Maxwell, Dec 1873 - Apr 1889, they begin with Maxwell's early childhood reminiscences and record his career in the Royal Navy. Significant events in Maxwell's naval service include: a visit to Pitcairn Island, where Maxwell encountered some of the BOUNTY mutineers' descendents; his involvement in the suppression of the slave trade; his extensive travels in Polynesia; and his role as Aide-de-Camp to Queen Victoria during the Jubilee celebrations in Hong Kong.

Papers of Sir John Donald Kelly, consisting of reports on the unsuccessful attack on the Goeben; on the Dardanelles, February to May 1915, and on a German raider in West Indian and South American waters, December 1916 to March 1917. There are orders relating to the Dardanelles, 1915, to the surrender of the German High Seas Fleet, 1918, to the Chanak incident of 1922, to the Invergordon mutiny in 1931 and to Kelly's final commands. The letters are mainly official but the private correspondents include Prince Louis of Battenburg (1854-1921), 1903, Earl Beatty (1871-1936), 1918 and 1932, Lord Louis Mountbatten (1900- ), 1929, Sir Roger Keyes (1872-1945), 1930 to 1931, and Lord Chatfield, 1932 to 1936. In addition, a small collection of fifteen letters, 1831 to 1847, relate to Captain, later Vice-Admiral, William Kelly (c 1795-1874), and are mostly concerned with the attack on the forts of Tamatave, Madagascar, in 1845. William Kelly is believed to have been a relative of Sir John Kelly.

Papers of Sir William Archibald Howard Kelly, consisting of a draft of his memoirs which is very detailed until 1933; after this period it has only a few notes and observations on Turkey. The diaries for 1899, 1901, 1903, 1905 to 1907, 1910, 1914 to 1916, 1919 to 1921, 1923 to 1929 and 1931 to 1933 are also detailed. The correspondence forms two groups; the first, 1914 to 1917, includes letters from Earl Beatty (1871-1936), Admiral Tyrwhitt (1870-195T) and Lord Jellicoe (1859-1935); the second group, 194G to 1944, includes those from Admirals Cunningham (q.v.), Harwood (1888-1950) and Willis (1889-1976). Some notebooks, news cuttings and articles complete the collection.

Papers of Sir George Grey. They consist of logs, 1795 to 1798 and 1800 to 1801, letter and order books, 1795 to 1801, and an order book, 1795 to 1801. There are some loose papers, including an account of the loss of the Boyne and of Grey's court martial In addition there are extracts copied from the journal of Sir George Rooke (1650-1709), 1692 to 1704; a volume of copies of General James Wolfe's (1727-1759) orders issued in 1759; and a volume with copies of correspondence exchanged between Admiral Sir Benjamin Hallowell (q.v.) and General Donkin (1773-1841) concerning a proposed duel, 1813 to 1815.

Papers of Sir Charles Saxton, consisting of a report and notes on settlements in Nova Scotia, 1762, an order book, 1780 to 1783, a book of 'remarks made in the presence of the French' in the Invincible, 1781 to 1782, accounts of Portsmouth Dockyard produced for the 1792 . Visitation and general rules for courts martial using the precedents of 1746, 1763 and 1773.

The collection illustrates the history of piracy from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century. It includes a journal of the voyage of Captain Bartholomew Sharp in the MAYFLOWER, 1680 to 1682, kept by his second-in-command, John Cox; it was on this voyage in the Pacific that Sharp captured a Spanish derrotero and the navigational information in it was used in the atlases of William Hack ([1656]-1708). Two letters from Sir Thomas Lynch (1603-?1684), Governor of Jamaica, give many details about measures taken to suppress piracy; the first, written to Sir Leoline Jenkins (1623-1683), Secretary of State, in 1683 relates principally to the interruption by privateers of the sugar trade of the West Indies; the second letter was written in 1683 to the Secretary of State for Northern Affairs, Lord Sunderland (1640-1702), and gives an account of the attack, led by Vanhorne (d.1683), on Vera Cruz. There is a journal and narrative account of the burning of La Trompeuse and other pirates in port at St Thomas's Island by Captain Charles Carlisle (d 1684) in the FRANCIS, 1683, and a collection of documents received by Sir Evan Nepean with some draft replies while Nepean was Governor of Bombay. These are mainly concerned with the expedition against piracy in the Persian Gulf between 1817 and 1819. There are also personal papers of Dr Gosse, which all relate to his publications on piracy.

Papers of Sir Charles Cunningham including official service documents, a log, 1796 to 1798, and a manuscript account of the Nore Mutiny. There is also a transcript of this made by Mr Granville Proby in the 1940s. The loose papers consist of correspondence received between 1799 and 1832 from, among others, William, Duke of Clarence, when Lord High Admiral, Earl St. Vincent (q.v.), Sir Evan Nepean (q.v.), Lord Spencer (1758-1834), Sir William Cornwallis (q.v.), the Hon. Charles Philip Yorke (q.v.), Sir John Barrow (1764-1848) and the 2nd Viscount Melville (q.v.). There is also material relating to Cunningham's period at Chatham.

The papers relating to Sir Hugh Cloberry Christian all date from 1798 when he was second in command of the Cape of Good Hope station. They include official correspondence relating mainly to the day to day running of the station but particulaly to the mutiny and subsequent Court Martial concerning the East Indiaman, PRINCESS CHARLOTTE. The papers relating to Sir Hugh's son, Hood Hanway Christian, are more extensive. Apart from an order book from 1812, when Christain was the governor of the Spanish fort at Castro, they are mostly official correspondence from the period 1824-1828. These relate to the supression of the slave trade and various disciplinary proceedings together with correspondence from the Navy Board. There is a small amount of personal correspondence including letters from Sir Richard Keats and Sir Edward Pellew.

Papers of Alfred Ernle Montacute Chatfield, consisting mainly of semi-official and private letters, 1932 to 1940, from Churchill (1874-1965), Lord Lothian (1882-1940), Admirals Sir Roger Backhouse (1878-1939), Sir Frederic Dreyer (1878-1956), Sir W.W. Fisher (q.v.), Lord Beatty (1871-1936), Sir John Kelly (q.v.), Sir (William) Howard Kelly (q.v.), Sir Charles Little (1882-1973), Sir Eric Fullerton (q.v).), Sir Dudley Pound (1877-1943) and other commanders-in-chief. The topics referred to in this correspondence include the battle of Jutland, 1916, the Invergordon Mutiny, 1931, the Naval Disarmament Conference, 1935, the Abyssinia crisis, 1935, the Spanish Civil War, 1936, the problems of defence and rearmament during the 1930s, international relations and control of the Fleet Air Arm. There are also photograph albums relating to the Royal Tour of India, the Mediterranean Command and the India Mission.

Papers of Francis Godolphin Bond comprising forty letters from William Bligh to Bond, twenty-eight of which deal with the voyage of the PROVIDENCE, three with the mutiny on the BOUNTY and the remainder with Bligh's efforts to promote Bond's career. There are also letters from others on the PROVIDENCE and some notes by Bond on the voyage about Bligh .