The Levant Voyage of the Blackham Galley (1696 ¿ 1698)

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<P>This volume publishes for the first time, the journal kept by John Looker (?1670¿1715) recording his service as ship¿s surgeon on the <I>Blackham Galley</I>, a London-built merchantman on its second trading voyage to the Levant, between December 1696 and March 1698. Preserved in the Caird Library of the National Maritime Museum, Looker¿s ¿Journall¿ describes his experiences on the voyage from the point at which he joined the ship at Gravesend, to March 1698, when the journal breaks off abruptly in mid-sentence when the ship was off the Kentish ¿Narrows¿. John Looker was a Londoner, brought up in one of the parishes to the east of the City which furnished large numbers of mariners to the English sea-borne trades. He served an apprenticeship to a London barber-surgeon, and became a Freeman of the Company of Barber-Surgeons. His fifteen months of service on board the <I>Blackham Galley</I> appears to have been his only employment at sea, but his ready knowledge of maritime ways and lan