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(SLAVE TRADE)
Service Afloat:
Comprising the Personal Narrative of a Naval Officer employed during the Late War; and the Journal of an Officer engaged in the Late Surveying Expedition under the Command of Captain Owen, on the Western Coast of Africa.
First and only edition, uncommon, just 8 copies on OCLC, not in BL. Brings together two naval narratives, both of which bear firsthand witness to the slave trade, and which were originally published in abbreviated form in the United Services Journal. The first narrative is attributed to Lieut. John Towne (see O'Byrne p1189), who was pressed from an East Indiaman in 1803 at the age of 17. He saw early service off Boulogne "in constant action with the enemy's flotilla and batteries," then in the West Indies, 1805-13, seeing frequent action, the destruction of the batteries at Port Louis, where he "with his own hands blew up the magazine," and Grande Terre, Guadeloupe, serving on shore with a division of seamen "at the reduction of the island and its dependencies." Towne concludes his account with an intelligent and compassionate chapter of "Thoughts and Reflections on Negro Slavery" based on his experiences in the Caribbean. The second memoir recounts experiences with Capt. William Fitzwilliam Owen's surveying cruise on the west coast of Africa. Owen had begun hydrographic work when in the East Indies in the first few years of the century, in 1815 he carried out a survey of the Great Lakes, and he "was appointed in 1821 to the sloop Leven, in which, with the brig Barracouta also under his command, he was instructed to survey the east coast of Africa from the boundary of Cape Colony to Cape Gardafui" (ODNB). Owen had been revolted by his experiences of the slave trade in the East Indies, and "was determined to stamp it out. Finding the Mazrui rulers of Mombasa under siege by their suzerain, Sayyid Said, sultan of Oman, Owen in February 1824 on his own initiative raised the siege and took the town under British protection in return for a promise by the Mazrui to abolish slavery. Though disowned by the home government, the protectorate lasted over two years." After leaving Simonstown late in 1825, the two ships carried out extensive surveys on the west coast of Africa on their way home. "At the end of 1826 Owen was appointed to the frigate Eden and as superintendent of Fernando Po, where it was intended that he should establish a colony for freed slaves". Alongside of his account of the surveying operations, the anonymous author offers a detailed description of the slave trade as carried out in West Africa. He is by no means as unambiguously opposed to the slave trade as Towne, finding justifications in the extirpation of cannibalism and of human sacrifice, but is still deeply troubled by the continuation of "so inhuman a trade".
2 volumes bound in 1, octavo. Original red cloth, somewhat rubbed, corners worn, rebacked with the majority of the original spine laid down, pale yellow endpapers. A little rubbed, worn at the corners, small hole to the front free endpaper, light toning, modern collector's bookplate to the front pastedown, a very good copy.
