16 - Leech, Samuel. *The Life of a Sailor Boy*. English manuscript on paper. With an opening vignette and 5 full-page pencil drawings of ships. England or America, ca. 1830. 47 pp. and several blank leaves, some of which have been removed. Tight but clearly legible cursive script in brown-black pen. 19 x 12 cm. Contemporary half-leather binding (worn, cover defects, front joint torn).

Leech, Samuel. *The Life of a Sailor Boy*. English manuscript on paper. With an opening vignette and 5 full-page pencil drawings of ships. England or America, ca. 1830. 47 pp. and several blank leaves, some of which have been removed. Tight but clearly legible cursive script in brown-black pen. 19 x 12 cm. Contemporary half-leather binding (worn, cover defects, front joint torn). Partly verbatim, partly heavily abridged and reworked excerpt from Leech’s famous autobiography *A Voice from the Main Deck*, Boston 1844. Leech, born in 1798 in Wanstead, Essex, signed on to the British warship “Macedonian” in 1810 after a brief stint at the Pleasure Grounds of Blenheim Palace and witnessed its destruction by the American frigate “United States” on October 25, 1812. This account focuses on the first six chapters of the printed report, covering the period from shortly before the naval battle—which is described mostly verbatim—through to the subsequent fraternization of the American and British sailors and officers. - The last nine pages contain another excerpt, “Een Bezoek op den Oceaan,” based on an unidentified diary. The ship sketches are found at the end on the blank pages and are labeled in German: Dutch ship Louisa Maria, Norwegian barque sighted near Gibraltar, Belgian schooner Ville de Liège, Turkish screwboat Omar Pascha, and English screw steamer Esk. - Inside the front cover is a name inscription “F. v. Marées”; the first page is slightly worn, but the interior is otherwise clean. #