This ledger contains two sections of recordkeeping for the mercantile firms Griffiths & Bruce and William Griffiths & Company. The first, totaling 38 pages, contains the accounts of Vice Admiral of the White James Richard Dacres, commander-in-chief of the Jamaica Station, with merchants Griffiths & Bruce. The transactions include payments and expenses for goods, labor, ships, and slaves from January 1805 to June 1810.
The second section (11 pages) contains two separate lists of prize and neutral vessels captured and brought to the Jamaica Station in 1807 and 1808. A "List of Vessels Pending under Appeal & Vessels whose Sales cannot be closed (10 June 1807) in Griffith's and Bruce's Books" includes ships' names, statuses, values, and "Remarks & corrections to the 20 June 1808." The second list, titled "Neutral Vessels detained by the Squadron on the Jamaica Station under the Command of Vice Admiral James Richard Dacres for which William Griffiths & Co. were Agents commencing the 1st Day of January 1807, under appeal or given up," includes the following information about each prize, when applicable:
- "No. on Admiralty List"
- "Captured Vessels: Rig, Name, Master"
- "Capturing Vessels: Name, Commander"
- "Date Sentence: Month, Year"
- "Proceeds Paid into Court: £, s, d"
- "Expenses disallowed by Court 'till final sentence: £, s, d"
- "Remarks & correction to the 22nd June 1808"
Vice-Admiral James Richard Dacres (1749-1810) was a career officer in the British Navy. He commanded many vessels including the Ceres, Perseus, and Barfleur in the American Revolution and French Revolutionary Wars. In 1805, appointed vice-admiral of the white squadron in Jamaica, Dacres cultivated a luxurious lifestyle supplemented by assets from prize vessels and the captured Dutch colony of Curaçao. He retired in 1809 and died on January 6, 1810.
William Griffiths was a British merchant in Kingston, Jamaica, who partnered in the Griffiths & Bruce Company before forming William Griffiths & Company. He conducted business with British commercial and military enterprises in Jamaica. By the time Great Britain banned the slave trade in 1807, Jamaica was an affluent colony as a result of its successful sugar trade. At the time of his death around 1817, Griffiths owned Camberwell, a plantation in St. George, Jamaica, and 103 slaves.
