No. 35 of 74 (PAJ1976 - PAJ2049)

Inscribed in ink 'AdVprGB June 74' ('to the life by Gabriel Bray'), this drawing shows a British naval two-decker of at least 64-guns, with a cutter to the left. It is most probably somewhere off the coast of Kent (the Sheerness area or the Downs, off Deal), which is where Bray spent the summer of 1774.

It is one of 73 drawings by Bray (plus one signed 'NF 1782') preserved in a 19th-century album. They have now been separately remounted. 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.