The commonplace journal of Sir John Ross which he used and wrote during his second and third commands before he received the fateful summons from the British Admiralty to find the North West Passage.

By 1816 Ross had, at the age of 39, achieved all that could have been asked of a Naval Officer. Whilst primarily stationed in the Baltic and the Channel he had been wounded on thirteen separate occasions and his eventual promotion to commander in 1812 had seemed like a long time coming. His command of the Actaeon in 1814 was short lived but he saw action detaining two French vessels bound for Dunkirk, before transferring to the Driver in 1816. There, patrolling the coasts of Scotland whilst planning for a retirement spent with his wife on half-pay and saved prize-money, he wrote this journal whilst longing for hearth and home.

Most of the verse is copied, from Byron, Scott, Roscoe, Burns or similar, but others are originals (at least no trace can be found of the pieces elsewhere). A trio of verses is particularly notable: divided into the chase, action, and shipwreck of a ship pursuing an enemy with evocative illustrations for each stage. It is far from unusual for poems to be present onboard a ship, with education not a requirement to have heard and recited certain pieces, and it is just as likely that Ross transcribed these verses from renditions by his fellow shipmates as from reading them in volumes. Much of the verse is dedicated to loss, weather, love, and the English countryside. While the illustrations of his ships certainly convey a romantic affection, the overall sentiment is clearly that of a homesickness and of a growing discontentment with his lot.

This journal, then, is a unique look into the mental state of Ross when he was called upon to be the first to venture for the Bering Strait since Baffin in 1616. Perhaps there is more to his consistent hallucinations of mountains and barriers than a dogged officer-like attitude. At any rate there was a Ross before the Arctic, and after. His reputation was ever changed following his ignominious return and unsatisfactory reports of the ice past Lancaster Sound. Even his hero's welcome in the wake of his second expedition saw controversy over the credit for the Magnetic North. He obviously still, through it all, remained a devoted family man.

With the journal are three signed letters written to his goddaughter, Clara Ross Jackson, written in the final years of his life. One, in particular, reveals his jaded attitude towards exploration by 1854: 'I have for these last few days been much occupied by the return of my friends from the Arctic regions, who, as I anticipated, have left their ships in the ice, to the great discomfiture of Lady Franklin, who is keen for another expedition leaving soon, but I believe the Lords of the Admiralty think they have had quite enough of Arctic Expeditions?'

4to (23 x 19 cm); 5 full-page illustrations of British Navy ships including two titled 'Actaeon' and 'Driver', 3 full-page illustrations of figures, 47pp. of verse accompanied by 21 original vignettes, pages watermarked 1815, ownership stamp of 'John Ross' to front free endpaper; contemporary half red calf, drab paper boards, with additional illustration to upper board depicting the journal's internals, dated 'His Majesty's Ship Driver March 1816', a little rubbed.