'A Sailor fishing off a gun (on the) Pallas' (Bray album) RMG PT2016

'A Sailor fishing off a gun [on the] Pallas' [Bray album]
No. 41 of 74 (PAJ1976 - PAJ2049)
A drawing of a sailor fishing signed and dated 'Jany 75 AVprGB' (to the life by Gabriel Bray). It was drawn on board the 'Pallas', possibly at anchor in Santa Cruz deTenerife, en route for Africa, or in Senegal roads. In terms of subject it is another version of PAJ2015.
Both are among 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.

A Sailor fishing off a gun [on the] Pallas