Today’s volume is from the library at the National Museum of the Royal Navy in Portsmouth. The NMRN’s library is just one room in the Portsmouth Historic Dockyard. While its holdings are somewhat limited, it is a lovely place to do research. They have a number of important volumes which are difficult to find other places, but they also have a series of other volumes (such as Statutes of the Realm), so that you can look things up as a reference if you need to.
Today’s volume is Instructions issued by Prince George of Denmark (call number VB363 GRE, staff code “2huu”). This is a copy of the various Instructions issued during his very limited time as Lord High Admiral between the succession of Queen Anne in 1702 and the Prince’s death in 1708. This copy is useful because in some ways it is a precursor of the Regulations and Instructions from 1731 (although it does not contain all the various sets). It contains the General Instructions (and additional), the first few orders of the Articles of War, Instructions for Captains, Instructions for Lieutenants, Instructions for Impressing and Vending of clothes (for Pursers), instructions specifically about depriving the Enemy of naval stores, and, delightfully, details of oaths/pass regarding Danish ships (in both Latin and English). This provides a very interesting and specific snapshot, and has copies of several short-lived sets of instructions- important for the context that they provide.
NMRN VB363 GRE General Instructions
NMRN VB363 GRE General Instructions
NMRN VB363 GRE General Instructions
NMRN VB363 GRE General Instructions – the documents pertaining to Denmark
Photos from this volume can be found on the Google Drive (57 images total)
