Constantinople, Odessa, Canary Islands, Spain, Italy, 1816-1818. Manuscript journal chronicling two voyages with a British merchant brig called "Exchange," featuring a sixteen-month voyage for trade at the Turkish city of Constantinople and Russian ruled Odessa only five years after the conclusion of the Anglo-Russian War, and two years prior to Odessa becoming a Free Port, being a detailed nautical log made by Peter Cook, a ship's mate twenty-six years of age. Folio. 88 pages, with authorship signature. A purpose-made document produced by J. Robins & Sons of Southwark, for recording nautical data during a sea voyage, completed in manuscript by the marine. Double leafs measuring approximately 21 x 32 cm, watermarked "O & P 1812" and with the Britannia, string-tied with paper wrappers titled in manuscript to front. Together with a single leaf in the same hand, with a hand coloured manuscript drawing of a mariner's compass to recto, and manuscript notes on Traverse Sailing to verso, made by the same hand circa 1805-1810, measuring approximately 21 x 25 cm. Together with the mariner's pensioner ticket, a legal document made on vellum, completed in manuscript, dated and signed on 22 April 1872 by an administrator of the Board of Trade, measuring approximately 19,5 x 25 cm. Some age-toning, a few leafs chipped at margin, otherwise in very good and original condition. Little is known of the vessel or the writer, other than what is revealed in the present documents. Robert Ashton was the commander of the brig, "SS Exchange" whose home port at the time was Plymouth. Peter Cook, born 1790, was a man of short stature, evidently employed by the mercantile marine. He was placed on the Pension List by the Board of Trade at the Port of Milford, Surrey, effective 1 April 1871, and resided in Tenby in Wales. Manuscript
