Please be aware this object contains racist imagery and language.

This pen and ink drawing with watercolour depicts a group of Royal Navy servicemen drinking and smoking around a table in the company of a black female attendant. A contemporary inscription gives a more precise account of the time and place: ‘Officers of HM Brig Bonetta on Board a Hulk, Sierra Leone, Africa in ’37’.

The 'Bonetta' (1836), operating along the coast of West Africa, was a fast and manoeuvrable brigantine designed to suppress the outlawed slave trade to British colonies. The hulk identified as the setting for this drawing was probably the 'Conflict', which appears to have been used, at least in part, as a floating brothel for the crews of British ships visiting Sierra Leone. The black female figure on the right is likely, therefore, to be enslaved in all but name, kept aboard the 'Conflict' for the sexual satisfaction of British sailors. The drawing was probably made by one of the naval officers from the 'Bonetta', and can be dated reasonably precisely between 15 and 22 March 1837 when, according to the 'Bonetta’s' Master’s log (ADM 51/ 3071), the ship’s company spent a week on board the 'Conflict'.

The individuals represented are identified, with greater or lesser certainty, from the Bonetta's Muster Roll (ADM 37/ 8778-8781) in a modern account of the image pasted to the back of the frame. They include, from left to right: ‘L-k-r’ (Nelson Locker, mate); ‘Sh-a-a-t’ (unidentified sailor); ‘P-l’ (Henry Pulling, able seaman [doubtful]); ‘Jolley’ (Charles Robert B. Jolley, assistant surgeon); ‘Wimms’ (either John or George Williams, able seaman [doubtful]); ‘B-r-r-w’ (Arthur Barrow, mate); ‘St-t’ (Robert Stewart, midshipman); ‘Paule’ (William Paul, clerk-in-charge); ‘Robertson’ (William Robertson); ‘Paul ---’ (Henry Paul, second master); and ‘L-t-h-r A-s-e’ (unidentified name or more likely a pejorative nickname of the African woman).