1848 HANDWRITTEN LETTER (ALS) FROM CAPT. HORACE TUFTS REGARDING PROBLEMS WITH HIS BRIG "TAM O'SHANTER" OFF THE WEST COAST OF AFRICA AS HE ENGAGED IN THE TRIANGLE TRADE

Matakong, Guinea, 1848. Original manuscript. Very Good. 1.5pp, octavo, written in a neat hand on blue laid paper. Datelined "Matacong" [Matakong, Guinea], Dec. 15th, 1848. Addressed to Edward D. Kimball, Esq. head of the Salem family of maritime merchants, bankers, and textile industrialists. In part: "...I am very sorry to inform you that the Tam O Shanter is in such a very bad condition that I am afraid she will not be fit to come home unless there is a great deal of money laid out .... I have been up the Coast in her and disposed of part of her Cargo and the Remnant of Ruby Powder .... I have left my 2d mate at Sierra Leone he being sick but will come home in the [brig] Ohio .... My Chief mate has allso been sick ...." Implores Kimball to pay the second mate on his return, promises to "do all in my power to forward the voyage...," &c. Signed by Horace Tufts. Docketed as received from him to travel via the third voyage of the "Ohio" Employed in the Triangle Trade, Captain Tufts and his crew plied some of the most notorious slave-trading ports of coastal Africa. He was eventually involved in a lawsuit against the English government, claiming that his ship had been unlawfully detained on a baseless accusation that he was working as the master of a brig in the African slave trade.