Brown cloth binding with gilt title and sailors on the spine and front board.

• F.B.A. provides an in-depth photographic presentation of this item to stimulate your feeling and touch. More traditional book descriptions are immediately available

One of a number of popular Victorian & Edwardian naval books.

Edward Hamilton Currey, R.N., Retired (13 January, 1857 – 10 December, 1916) served in the Royal Navy. Currey was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant on 30 June, 1882. While in command of Bramble, Currey apparently committed an error in judgement as to which charge when used in firing a salute which resulted in the death of a Boatman. However, in November of the same year, he captured a Wahidi Chief who had been disturbing the peace near Aden. Currey was placed on the Retired List due to age at the rank of Commander on 13 January, 1902. He was called back into service for the Great War, having had occasional courses in Torpedo and Gunnery in 1908 and 1911. On 22 June 1915 he was appointed for duty with D.N.T.O., Liverpool. He seemingly was still engaged in this role when he died in late 1916 from causes that are not specified in his Service Record.

Sir Henry Morgan ( c. 1635 – 25 August 1688) was a Welsh privateer, plantation owner, and, later, Lieutenant Governor of Jamaica. From his base in Port Royal, Jamaica, he raided settlements and shipping on the Spanish Main, becoming wealthy as he did so. With the prize money from the raids, he purchased three large sugar plantations on the island.
Much of Morgan’s early life is unknown. He was born in an area of Monmouthshire that is now part of the city of Cardiff. It is not known how he made his way to the West Indies, or how he began his career as a privateer. He was probably a member of a group of raiders led by Sir Christopher Myngs in the early 1660s during the Anglo-Spanish War. Morgan became a close friend of Sir Thomas Modyford, the Governor of Jamaica. When diplomatic relations between the Kingdom of England and Spain worsened in 1667, Modyford gave Morgan a letter of marque, a licence to attack and seize Spanish vessels. Morgan subsequently conducted successful and highly lucrative raids on Puerto Principe (now Camagüey in modern Cuba) and Porto Bello (now Portobelo in modern Panama). In 1668, he sailed for Maracaibo and Gibraltar, both on Lake Maracaibo in modern-day Venezuela; he raided both cities and stripped them of their wealth before destroying a large Spanish squadron as he escaped. In 1671, Morgan attacked Panama City, landing on the Caribbean coast and traversing the isthmus before he attacked the city, which was on the Pacific coast. To appease the Spanish, with whom the English had signed a peace treaty, Morgan was arrested and summoned to London in 1672, but was treated as a hero by the general populace and the leading figures of government and royalty, including Charles II.
Morgan was appointed a Knight Bachelor in November 1674 and returned to the Colony of Jamaica shortly afterward to serve as the territory’s Lieutenant Governor. He served on the Assembly of Jamaica until 1683 and on three occasions he acted as Governor of Jamaica in the absence of the current post-holder. A memoir published by Alexandre Exquemelin, a former shipmate of Morgan’s, accused him of widespread torture and other offences; Morgan won a libel suit against the book’s English publishers, but Exquemelin’s portrayal has affected history’s view of Morgan. His life was romanticised after his 1688 death and he became the inspiration for pirate-themed works of fiction across a range of genres.