![[MILITARY - NAVY]. Sailing and Fighting Instructions for His Majesties Fleets, n.p., n.d. [London?: 1782?].](https://www.christies.com/img/LotImages/2011/NYR/2011_NYR_02456_0173_000(military_-_navy_sailing_and_fighting_instructions_for_his_majesties_fl071127).jpg?w=1)
Details
[MILITARY - NAVY]. Sailing and Fighting Instructions for His Majesties Fleets, n.p., n.d. [London?: 1782?].
2o (346 x 219 mm). Extensively illustrated with 100 pen and ink, hand colored drawings of ship signals, flags and guns (top third of title page cropped, very slight foxing at opening and closing pages, small hole from acidic ink on final drawing). In a 19th century brown morocco binding stamped in gilt (spine and extremities rubbed). Numerous holograph additions and final blank page with two extensive autograph additions signed by John Norris. Provenance: John Norris (autograph emendation signed on final, blank leaf); Gideon Welles (1802-1878), Lincoln's Secretary of the Navy (inscription on front free endpaper from Thornton A. Jenkins); Paul Peralta-Ramos (his sale, Sotheby's N.Y., 18 June 2004, lot 270).
GIDEON WELLES'S COPY of this beautifully hand-illustrated naval manual, inscribed on the front endpaper: "Presented to the Hon. Gideon Welles Secretary of the Navy by Thornton A. Jenkins Chief of Bureau of Navigation Sept. 17th 1866." It covers almost every conceivable scenario and condition for communicating between Her Majesty's ships: signals by day or by night, "sailing in a fog," "instructions to be observed by younger Captains to the Elder," and--most importantly--"Fighting Instructions": "When the Admiral would have the Fleet draw into a Line of Battel [sic], one ship a-head of another (according to the Method given to each Captain) he will hoist an Union Flag at Mizen-peek, and fire a Gun; and every Flag ship in the Fleet is to make the same Signal." Each instruction is accompanied by a hand-colored, pen and ink drawing showing the flag disposition and drawing one, two or ten guns, as the signal requires. Many of the printed instructions are supplemented by autograph additions and elaborations, accomplished in a neat clerical hand. This fighting instruction, for example, is followed by: "and every Ship is to Sail immediately into her own Station and keep the same Distance those ships do that are next to the Admiral, always taking his from the Centre." Two extensive additions on the final blank leaf are signed by John Norris. Various editions of this title exist, dating back to 1673. The Admiralty replaced it in 1799 with The Signal Book for Ships of War.
Welles served as Navy Secretary during the Civil War and continued under Andrew Johnson. Jenkins (1811-1893) had a long and eventful military career, spanning his participation in the suppression of Nat Turner's rebellion in 1831, to the Mexican War, and culminating with his service under David Farragut during the Civil War. Adams & Waters, English Maritime Books, 1530.
2o (346 x 219 mm). Extensively illustrated with 100 pen and ink, hand colored drawings of ship signals, flags and guns (top third of title page cropped, very slight foxing at opening and closing pages, small hole from acidic ink on final drawing). In a 19th century brown morocco binding stamped in gilt (spine and extremities rubbed). Numerous holograph additions and final blank page with two extensive autograph additions signed by John Norris. Provenance: John Norris (autograph emendation signed on final, blank leaf); Gideon Welles (1802-1878), Lincoln's Secretary of the Navy (inscription on front free endpaper from Thornton A. Jenkins); Paul Peralta-Ramos (his sale, Sotheby's N.Y., 18 June 2004, lot 270).
GIDEON WELLES'S COPY of this beautifully hand-illustrated naval manual, inscribed on the front endpaper: "Presented to the Hon. Gideon Welles Secretary of the Navy by Thornton A. Jenkins Chief of Bureau of Navigation Sept. 17th 1866." It covers almost every conceivable scenario and condition for communicating between Her Majesty's ships: signals by day or by night, "sailing in a fog," "instructions to be observed by younger Captains to the Elder," and--most importantly--"Fighting Instructions": "When the Admiral would have the Fleet draw into a Line of Battel [sic], one ship a-head of another (according to the Method given to each Captain) he will hoist an Union Flag at Mizen-peek, and fire a Gun; and every Flag ship in the Fleet is to make the same Signal." Each instruction is accompanied by a hand-colored, pen and ink drawing showing the flag disposition and drawing one, two or ten guns, as the signal requires. Many of the printed instructions are supplemented by autograph additions and elaborations, accomplished in a neat clerical hand. This fighting instruction, for example, is followed by: "and every Ship is to Sail immediately into her own Station and keep the same Distance those ships do that are next to the Admiral, always taking his from the Centre." Two extensive additions on the final blank leaf are signed by John Norris. Various editions of this title exist, dating back to 1673. The Admiralty replaced it in 1799 with The Signal Book for Ships of War.
Welles served as Navy Secretary during the Civil War and continued under Andrew Johnson. Jenkins (1811-1893) had a long and eventful military career, spanning his participation in the suppression of Nat Turner's rebellion in 1831, to the Mexican War, and culminating with his service under David Farragut during the Civil War. Adams & Waters, English Maritime Books, 1530.