Half-length portrait of an officer from the 'Pallas', possibly Alexander Agnew (Bray album) RMG PT2017

Half-length portrait of an officer from the 'Pallas', possibly Alexander Agnew [Bray album]
No. 42 of 74 (PAJ1976 - PAJ2049)
Signed and dated 'AvprGB (to the life by Gabriel Bray) Jan 1775 Pallas'. While the sitter is unidentified, he is clearly a lieutenant of the 'Pallas' and the drawing shows how officers must have looked much of the time in working 'undress' uniform. It may show the first lieutenant, Alexander Agnew, whose career came to an end in 1780 after an irresolute engagement with French privateers of Flamborough Head, Yorkshire, when he was Master and Commander of the 16-gun sloop 'Fury'. He was subsequently dismissed from the service by a court-martial.
This is one of 73 drawings by Bray (plus one signed 'NF 1782') preserved in a 19th-century album. They have now been separately remounted. Bray (1750-1823), was second lieutenant of the 44-gun ‘Pallas’ under Captain the Hon. William Cornwallis (1744-1819) – later a well-known admiral - on two voyages (1774-77) to report on British interests in West Africa, including the slave trade. The dated drawings refer only to the first of these, from December 1774 to September 1775, though a few may be from the second. Others comprise country views, some of Deal, Kent (where Bray may have come from), and others of social-history interest.

Half-length portrait of an officer from the 'Pallas', possibly Alexander Agnew