Lecture: Phillip Reid, “A Boston Schooner . . ."

October 28, 2023 | 3:00 PM
 Holt Education Center | 200 S. Cross St.

Author and historian Phillip Reid will talk about his newly released book, “A Boston Schooner in the Royal Navy, 1768-1772 -Commerce and Conflict in Maritime British America,” which takes an in-depth look at the history and world of the 1768 schooner SULTANA (yes – that SULTANA!). 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. Reid’s 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.