Framed pastel portrait drawing of Captain Henry Wilson, mounted in an oval frame. Wilson is shown in three-quarter view, facing forward in his captain's uniform. A small ship is visible over his right shoulder in the background. Wilson was a merchant service officer in the British East India Company. He commanded the East India packet 'Antelope' in 1783, when it was shipwrecked off Ulong Island, near Koror Island in Palau. The three months spent constructing a schooner from the remains of the ship, in which to leave for Macau, formed the first sustained European contact with the Ulong and Koror islanders. Prince Lee Boo from Palau returned to England with Wilson, where he briefly became a social celebrity before catching smallpox and dying there in 1784. Wilson's collection of Palau artefacts, now in the British Museum, are the earliest known group of objects from the region. He later went on to command the East Indiaman 'Warley' for five voyages, including in 1804 when she was one of the ships in the convoy under Commodore Dance that drove off a French naval squadron in the Strait of Malacca, in which Wilson played a distinguished part. This pastel was published by William Hinde as a stipple engraving in 1788. [amended PvdM 8/16]