Exercises in mathematics, navigation, fortification, surveying, mechanics, etc., at the Royal Naval Academy in Portsmouth, finely executed by the future Admiral Charles Sotheby (1782-1814) when he studied there in the years 1795 to 1798 (probably ages 13 to 15). The large folding nautical chart of the North Atlantic shows the North American coast from Newfoundland to Cape Cod, the Caribbean and Atlantic islands and the coasts of West Africa and western Europe, while the full-page one includes the coasts of Greenland, Iceland, western Europe, West Africa, the Atlantic islands and a sand bank off Newfoundland. The other nautical charts show Christmas Island (off the coast of Java, though the form differs), Palmerston Island (in the South Pacific) and Table Bay (at Cape Town, South Africa) in great detail. The pages have been numbered as a whole, with a single series covering both volumes, and mostly also section by section with the following number of pages: arithmetic 56, geometry 48, plane trigonometry 18, the description and use of the terrestrial globe 5, geography 12, chronology 10, navigation 17 & 29, spherics 28, astronomy 34, latitude 13, longitude [33], days works [= journal keeping] [22], marine surveying [31], fortification [29], gunnery [22] and mechanics [19].
Charles Sotheby (1782-1854), entered the Royal Naval Academy at Portsmouth on 5 September 1795 and studied there until he began his service in the British navy on 31 March 1798, seeing duty at the Battle of the Nile in that year. He commanded a ship by 1809 and rose steadily through the ranks until he became Rear-Admiral in 1848. The academy was restricted to sons of noblemen and gentlemen and was intended to train officers for naval command.
The present exercise book not only shows Sotheby's high level of skill and knowledge at an early age, it also provides a very clear and detailed picture of the training of British naval officers in the 1790s, as Napoleon began making his earliest plans to invade England.
Each volume with the engraved bookplate of Charles Sotheby, with the rampant talbot crest from the Sotheby coat of arms, and also with the bookplate of the Dutch cartographic historian Cornelius Koeman (1918-2006). In very good condition, with only a small chip in one leaf and a tattered fore-edge in a few others. The bindings are rubbed and the spines worn, with a crack in the front hinge of vol. II, but the tooling remains clear. A detailed and fascinating picture of the teenage studies at the Royal Naval Academy in Portsmouth.