Page 40 - Christie's London China Trade Paintings Kelton Collection

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SHIPS’ LOGS. Manuscript log of the East India Company ship Bellmont,
opening in the Atlantic Ocean towards Bombay and closing of the south coast
of England, 8 March 1788-12 May 1789.

144 pages, 450 x 285mm, daily entries recording the date, location, winds
and weather, and activities and observations aboard the ship, illustrated with
pencil sketches of land profles throughout. Modern brown cloth.
A detailed record of life aboard the East India Company trade ship Bellmont,
plying the waters between India and China; the present log book, apparently
kept by a post-captain aboard the vessel, opens mid-way through her voyage,
bound for Bombay, and contains daily accounts of activity onboard. The
journey to Bombay is not without its challenges: after a jubilant ceremony
of equator-crossing is recorded (‘the usual ceremony of shaving etc was
perform’d and Punch, & Good Humour, prevail’d’, 11 March 1788), the number
of men on the sick list begins to grow, and the disposal of corpses and washing
of the sick berth with vinegar now appears with regularity in the log alongside
the endless litany of naval life catalogued here: caulking, repairing of sails,
cleaning of decks and guns, theft, punishment of misdemeanors with lashes,
the sighting of birds (including two albatross, at which the author – perhaps
unwisely – takes shots), and the passing of other ships (including the Scarboro
& Charlotte, ‘Botany Bay ships for England’, which are spotted in Whampoa
[now Pazhou]). They arrive in Bombay in the frst week of June 1788 and spend
the following two months employed on East India Company business before
heading for China – passing the peaks of the Ladrones Islands, captured in one
of the author’s pencil coastal profles – reaching the anchorage of Whampoa
in September 1788, where cotton is traded for the Company. The Bellmont
sets of on 4 January 1789 for England richly laden; the cargo, listed here,
includes 378 chests of souchong and 135 bales of raw silk. The three First
Fleet transports under charter to the East India Company – the Charlotte,
Scarborough and Lady Penrhyn – departed Botany Bay (where they had
disembarked their convicts in January) in May 1788, sailing for China, where
they took on cargoes of tea, before returning to England.
£1,500-2,500 US$1,900-3,100
€1,700-2,800