Portugal

AQ11379 — s.i. Portugal: s.n. 1815 In two volumes. 47pp 3 the remainder blank; 12 blank leaves with alphabetized tabs 35ff 41ff the remainder blank with some newspaper clippings relating to WW1 tipped in at end. A printed broadside 'Instructions to Cashiers of Military Chests' is pasted to the FEP of each volume. Contemporary reverse calf with attractive black morocco gilt lettering-pieces to upper board of each volume marbled endpapers. Rubbed and marked with some loss to calf at edges and bumping to corners. A fascinating pair of early nineteenth-century manuscripts albeit sparsely filled consisting of the details of substantial payments made on behalf of the British Army in Portugal and corresponding transfers between military chests and pay offices in Almeida and Lisbon during the tumultuous months of 1815 which saw Napoleon's return from exile in Elba the Hundred days rule and the final defeat of his French army at the Battle of Waterloo. The day book records money received and paid out and in some cases the circumstances such as receipts and instructions from various pay offices and military figures including 'Mr Commissary General Murray' and 'Ac Comm'y Gn. St Remy' - with the vast majority of the payments made to Portuguese individuals - whilst the ledger the corresponding folios of which are referenced to each payment in the day book in red ink contains double-entry debit and credit accounts. As the printed instructions notes the day book therefore includes 'every Circumstance relating to the Military Chest which may be in the least Degree important at the Time or which the Day of its Occurrence' whilst the ledger 'consists of a General Cash Account and of as many other separate Accounts as there are Species of Coin Bullion or Paper Money to be accounted for'. . Folio. [s.n., 1815] unknown