Collection includes five letters, relating to Bremer’s Naval service. There are three letters relating to his command of the gun brig FEARLESS, 1803-1804. Also included are two letters relating to his command of the floating prison ship SUFFOLK; a narrative of the preservation of the FEARLESS and an article from the London Chronicle, 1764, describing the return of James Grant, Governor of East Florida on board the sloop FERRET, commanded by Lt. James Bremer (senior).

Administrative / biographical background
Bremer, Sir James John Gordon was the son of Lieutenant James Bremer RN (d. 1786). He was entered as a first-class volunteer on board the guardship SANDWICH at the Nore in 1794. This was only for a few months; in October 1797 he was appointed to the Royal Naval College at Portsmouth, and was not again embarked until 1802, when he was appointed to the ENDYIMON as a midshipman under Captain Philip Durham. For the next fourteen years he was actively and continuously serving in different parts of the world. He was made lieutenant on 3 August 1805, commander on 13 October 1807, and captain on 7 June 1814, but had no opportunities for any special distinction. On 4 June 1815 Bremer was made a CB, and on 24 October 1816, while in command of the frigate COMUS, he was wrecked on the coast of Newfoundland. In February 1824 he was sent, in command of the TAMAR, to choose a site for a British settlement on the north coast of New Holland, which would enable British merchants to break the Dutch trade monopoly in the East Indies. He sailed from Sydney and chose a site (Fort Dundas) on the western shore of Melville Island, Australia. In September he took formal possession, left a garrison and convicts, and in November sailed to India. He continued an enthusiast for the expansion of British trade in the Malay areas. On 25 January 1836 he was made a KCH, and in the following year was appointed to the frigate ALLIGATOR, and again went out to Australia, where, attempts to colonize Melville Island having failed, he formed a settlement at Port Essington, which he left in June 1839; it failed and was abandoned in 1849. From there he returned to India, where, by the death of Sir Frederick Maitland in December 1839, he was left senior officer for a few months, until superseded by Rear-Admiral Elliot in July; he was again senior officer in the following November, when Admiral Elliot invalided, until the arrival of Sir William Parker in August 1841. Sir Gordon Bremer had thus the naval command of the expedition to China during the greater part of the years 1840–41, with the local rank of commodore, for which services he received the thanks of parliament, and was made KCB on 29 July 1841. In April 1846 he was appointed second in command of the channel squadron, with his broad pennant in the Queen, and in the following November was appointed commodore-superintendent of Woolwich Dockyard, a post he held for the next two years.