(SLAVERY AND ABOLITION) Scrapbook kept by the builder of the

Sale 2503 - Lot 67

Price Realized: $ 1,500

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Estimate: $ 1,500 - $ 2,500

(SLAVERY AND ABOLITION.) Scrapbook kept by the builder of the famous British slave-ship hunter, the HMS Waterwitch. [52] manuscript pages plus 5 original pieces of art, 10 printed items, and 16 original manuscripts tipped or laid in. Folio, original tooled calf, moderate wear; hinges split, varied wear to contents, some leaves excised. Vp, 1832-84 and undated

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Joseph White (1801-1876) was an English yacht builder in Cowes, Isle of Wight, whose most famous ship was the brig Waterwitch. Built for a private customer as a racing vessel in 1832, it was sold to the Royal Navy two years later and had great success in catching illegal slave traders. This volume contains much local and family material, and is of general maritime interest. Of most importance here are documents relating to the Waterwitch and the suppression of the slave trade. Among the manuscripts laid in (apparently intended to be transcribed on a rainy day, but here in the original) are a letter written to White by senior mate James Willcox aboard the Waterwitch in the Bight of Benin, 31 August 1839: "On our first arrival on the station we had an opportunity of trying rate of sailing with the fastest vessel known on the coast of Africa for some time, a Spanish felucca beautifully equipped and found after a chase of seven hours. We captured her with three hundred and sixty slaves onboard. . . . A month after this we fell in with a Spanish schooner new built in Baltimore, in fact considered a regular clipper. After a chase of four hours we captured her with three hundred & forty four slaves." Transcribed into the book are minutes of the "Select Committee for the Coast of Africa" for 1842, in which a captain testified "If I had a fast-sailing vessel like the Waterwitch . . . instead of 12 vessels I think I should have taken 20." A later slip of paper lists "Slave vessels captured by H.M.B. Waterwitch"--8 ships captured between 1839 and 1843, with the number of slaves rescued. Many other pages relate to the Waterwitch, particularly its engineering details and its speed trials.
The volume also includes several original works of art, most of them quite accomplished. Most notable are 3 views of the Cape of Good Hope, South Africa by the artist John Comfield, who went there as a colonist in 1820. A worn engraving of White's most famous ship is titled "H.M.B. Waterwitch, 10 Guns."