No. 56 of 74 (PAJ1976 - PAJ2049)

Dated and signed 'April 75 AVprGB' (to the like by Gabriel Bray). This was probably sketched on the 'Pallas's' transatlantic passage from Africa to Barbados, from 4 April to 31 May 1775. The location in the ship is probably almost the same as in PAJ2023, on the port side of the main gundeck forward hatch, looking forward, with the port anchor cable snaking out of the lower foreground and temporarily hoisted overhead, out of the way while making passage. The forward companionway rises to the deck above on the right. The seamen on the left is sitting in a sea chest marked 'CDN 17' (probably CD No. 17), his number and place in the ship (see PAJ1989).

This 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.