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Auction: 18037 - The Philatelic Collectors' Series Sale
Lot: 876

Dutch West Indies
Curacao
1809 (1 June) entire letter to Devon, re-addressed to Cheltenham, headed "On the island of Aruba", rated "1/8" (deleted) and "2/6", showing unframed "falmouth/packet letter" and, on reverse, superb intaglio "curacao/post/office" h.s. (Julsen and Benders Type II) with manuscript "3 Bits paid" alongside. Very rare. Photo

Note: The contents give a graphic account of a voyage in a ropey ship called "The Carr". They were to have gone ? via Madeira, but they lost the convoy in the Bay of Biscay and made straight for Barbados, where they arrived after seven weeks of rough passage, fortunately dodging the privateers. Then the Captain became completely lost off the north coast of the Spanish Main, and were lucky to fall in with an English Sloop of War which took the writer and his wife to Aruba. Curacao is described as an island belonging to England but mostly inhabited by Indians and some Dutch.

provenance:
R.H. Urwick, October 1964
K.J.A.O. Manning, March 1994

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Sold for
£4,000