Boydell Press A Boston Schooner in the Royal Navy, 1768-1772

As a typical workaday British American merchant ship taken into naval service, Sultana offers a rare opportunity to understand the day-to-day business of operating a small sailing ship. This book explores the technology of the ship and her sailing qualities as revealed by both the ship's logs and by the performance of a modern replica. Reid further considers Sultana's role within the period leading up to the American Declaration of Independence when British taxation of American trade was a hugely contentious issue. It is thereby both a naval microhistory and an Atlantic history for all scholars interested in the formation and development of the British Atlantic world.