Journal of Alexander Loudon, purser on the troopship HMS ROMULUS (1785), kept between 10 July 1800 and 23 June 1801, with an additional loose sheet providing entries for 24 August to 3 September 1801. The ROMULUS was in the fleet that landed an expeditionary force at Aboukir Bay in March 1801 as part of operations to reclaim Egypt from the French. The journal includes accounts of the Battle of Aboukir Bay as observed from ROMULUS and actions surrounding the Battle of Alexandria. Loudon records his various activities and dealing as a purser as well as a trip up the Nile to Rosetta and a visit to Acre during which he accompanied Captain Culverhouse to a meeting with Jazzar Pasha [Ahmed Pasha al-Jazzar].

Administrative / biographical background
Loudon was born at Tannadice, Scotland, in 1789. During the Napoleonic Wars he served as a purser in the Royal Navy and then went on the expedition which brought Java under British control. When the island was restored to the Dutch in 1815, he remained in Semarang with his Dutch wife Suzanna Gaspardina Valck, running a profitable business in the manufacture of sugar and indigo. Commercial activity in the Dutch East Indies made the Loudon family very wealthy and well-connected in the Netherlands. Loudon later became a Dutch national and died at Rotterdam in 1839. Among his children, John Francis Loudon (1821-1895) assembled an important collection of Delftware, and James Loudon (1824-1900) was a politician whose posts included being Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies.