101. A Sailor of King George, by Captain Frederick Hoffman
Owned?: Yes Page count: 182 My summary: Captain Frederick Hoffman was a sailor between 1793 and 1815, riding in position from a Midshipman to a Captain across several ships. This is his memoir of his time sailing, the things he saw in foreign ports, how he grew from the lowest officer rank on ship, and the unpleasant end to his career after two months as a prisoner of war in France. My rating: 3/5 My commentary:
This one's a bit more tenuous in its connection to research. The thing I want to write will be set around the Golden Age of Piracy, the 1710s, and Captain Hoffman was active in the late 18th and early 19th century. Still, I want to read primary sources from the Age of Sail in general where I can find them, and there's always the odd tidbit here and there that's relevant or interesting. Captain Hoffman seems reasonably typical for his day and age - pompous, racist, and kind of a windbag. When he depicted the speech of Black people, it was always in eye dialect and stereotypical for how white people of the era perceived Black people. He also described Black people in caricaturised ways. Par for the course for a white man of the era, I suppose, though not exactly fun to read. He had some fun stories to tell though, I liked when he branched out into little pen portraits of his shipmates or more humorous anecdotes about his time at sea. Made the reasonably dry sailing narrative a little more palatable. I don't really have a lot to say about this one, it was exactly what I expected it would be; no more, no less.
Next…more pirates. Look, the fiction book I'm reading right now is long, okay?