Lot 1
1
A CONTEMPORARY MANUSCRIPT, AFTER THE ORIGINAL BY JOHN DEANE, ENTITLED '..THE MARITIME AFFAIRS OF RUSSIA FROM THEIR EARLIEST DATE TO THE COMMENCEMENT OF THIS PRESENT YEAR, 1724..',
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A CONTEMPORARY MANUSCRIPT, AFTER THE ORIGINAL BY JOHN DEANE, ENTITLED '..THE MARITIME AFFAIRS OF RUSSIA FROM THEIR EARLIEST DATE TO THE COMMENCEMENT OF THIS PRESENT YEAR, 1724..',

Details
A CONTEMPORARY MANUSCRIPT, AFTER THE ORIGINAL BY JOHN DEANE, ENTITLED '..THE MARITIME AFFAIRS OF RUSSIA FROM THEIR EARLIEST DATE TO THE COMMENCEMENT OF THIS PRESENT YEAR, 1724..',
written in a very legible hand over eighty numbered and eleven unnumbered quarto-sized pages and detailing the minutæ of the entire condition of the Russian Navy, including: a full narrative description of the Csar's yards; lists of every vessel built, broken or on the stocks, their size, origin, commander's origin, builder's (occasionally), costings and salaries (in roubles); details and results of actions fought; how the navy is organised and the hierarchy of officers and their condiiton of service (rank, dismissed etc..). The last page is entitled The present State of the Russian Navy, 1725 with an updated list of vessels and a margin note reading: Several of these Ships were oberv'd last Year to be very Crazy; and unfit for Sea; and must now be in a more Declin'd Condition: but this is little Dis-advantage to the Czar, because he has twice as many as he can Mann. Besides the Czar takes infinate Delight to view his Ships in the Harbour; and have the Lists when exaggerated, app-ear abroad in the Worlds; he will never cease to increase their Number, Yearly. Bound into decorated Morocco leather boards -- 13 x 8¼in. (33 x 21cm.)
See illustration
Provenance
Captain Bruce Ingram Collection
Literature
The Mariner's Mirror, Vol 20 1934 No. 3 pp.373-376, in which this manuscript is discussed in some detail.
Hughes, Lindsay: Peter the Great and the West: New Perspectives, Palgrave, pp.152
Navy Records Society: History of the Russian Fleet during the reign of Peter the Great. By a Contemporary Englishman, 1899
Special notice
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Lot Essay

There has been some speculation regarding the identity of the author Deane. The confusion stems largely from two other Deane's - Sir Anthony Deane and his brother, John Deane, who were also involved with Russian naval shipbuilding at about the same time. The manuscript itself offers some clues: on page 85 (un-numbered) one Captain John Deane is listed as being dismissed in 1722. It is possible, then, that it is this Captain who compiled his notes and wrote them up for King George I. Because the hand is so strong and neat, the older John Deane, brother of Sir Anthony, has been precluded - unless this is a fair copy of his work, in which case the original manuscript has yet to surface. As the Mariner's Mirror suggests, only careful research into the genealogy of the Deane's may resolve the confusion.

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