Jonathan Griffin

18 June 2022

HMS Centaur and Hood’s Boys

Just occasionally, a happy team experiences a magic moment when everything seems to go right. The early months of 1804, aboard HMS Centaur, 74, under Commodore […]
19 April 2022

The Author

The Ceuta papers contain a large number of hints about our author and his role both in Ceuta and Cadiz. The evidence points to a Joseph […]
21 March 2022

Background notes – Ceuta

The threat from a joint enemyNapoleon and his French armies dominated Europe. Then, in 1807, France and Spain jointly attacked Portugal, Britain’s ally. The threat increased […]
15 March 2022

Background notes – Cadiz

At the beginning of 1810, events in Spain were unravelling at an alarming pace. The advance of the French troops in was directed at Cadiz which […]
23 February 2022

Historical background

The Cadiz journal appears to have been written in February/March 1810. The author says he had arrived in Cadiz from North Africa and we can therefore […]
21 February 2022

The Cadiz journal

The third document has quite a different format to the other two. It begins with the author’s arrival in Cadiz, where he logs the events and […]
21 February 2022

The Ceuta report

The Ceuta report comprises two documents which are quite clearly continuous. They appear to be something of a report on the defences of Ceuta and of […]
19 October 2021

Packet ships and slavery

We are often asked what role the Falmouth Packet Service played in slavery. At one level, the Packet Service was simply a government-run postal service collecting […]