No. 2 of 74 (PAJ1976 - PAJ2049)

This harvesting scene was probably sketched in Kent while Bray was at home on half-pay in the summer of 1774, before he joined the 'Pallas' at Portsmouth and sailed for Africa in December.

It is one of 73 drawings by Bray (plus one signed 'NF 1782') preserved in a 19th-century album. Bray (1750-1823), was second lieutenant of the 44-gun ‘Pallas’ under Captain the Hon. William Cornwallis (1744-1819) – later a well-known admiral - on two voyages (1774-77) to report on British interests in West Africa, including the slave trade. The dated drawings refer only to the first of these, from December 1774 to September 1775, though a few may be from the second. Others comprise country views, some of Deal, Kent (where Bray may have come from), and others of social-history interest.